CHAPTER IV. 

 PRUNING. 



The former methods of pruning. Pruning was at first greatly neg- 

 lected. Just as the majority of orchards were formerly left to fight 

 their way in competition with other plants, so the limbs in each tree 

 were allowed to fight with each other. Only a few orchards have 

 been well pruned from the time of planting. In some pruning was 

 almost entirely neglected for years; in others it was done and is still 



FIG. 48. Years of neglect followed by too severe pruning. 



done in such a manner as to do more harm than good. There is a 

 tendency among careless, farmers to let the trees go for several years 

 and then give them a "thorough trimming" (see Fig. 48), rather than 

 prune some every year, as the careful grower does. Perhaps one-fifth 

 of the orchards are now well primed, and this number is being added to 

 each year, as the number of real fruit-growers increases. The problem 

 of pruning among the bearing trees of Wayne county is, therefore, not 

 that of training an ideal tree from the time it is planted ; but the far" 

 more difficult problem of correcting the effects of former neglect. 



How wounds heal. Intelligent pruning is based on a knowledge of 

 the causes of decay, and of the way in which wounds heal. 



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