PRUNING AND TMAINING. Ill 



CHAPTER V. 



PRUNING AND TRAINING. 



Cautious the pruner pinches from the second stalk 



A tiny pimple that portends a future sprout. 



None but his steel may touch the twigs doomed to the knife. 



The limbs at measured distances, that air and sun 



Admitted freely, may afford their genial aid, 



To ventilate, and warm, and swell the fruit and buds. 



COWPEE'S Task. 



The Philosophy of Pruning. PruniDg and training fruit- 

 trees correctly is the most difficult of all the operations 

 connected with the propagation of trees and the manage- 

 ment of orchards, as no set of rules or recipes can be given 

 for the pruning of fruit-trees which will enable a person 

 unacquainted with the principles of vegetable growth to 

 become a successful practitioner. A tree is not simply an 

 individual organism or unit, like a man or a horse it is a 

 "Mutual Benefit Society," composed of a number of indi- 

 viduals, amounting sometimes to many millions, each one 

 being capable, under favorable circumstances, of maintain- 

 ing its own existence, not only when in connection with, 

 but when separated from, the community in which it was 

 produced ; or it may easily be transferred to another soci- 

 ety, and will there grow and reproduce its kind with undi- 

 minished vigor. Hence, for any one to tell on paper when 

 is the proper time to prune a tree or not to prune it, under 

 all circumstances, would be a task which has never as yet 

 been done, and which we do not expect to perform in this 

 place. But it is not difficult to state what effects usually 

 follow pruning at a given period when different parts of 

 a tree or plant are pruned. The cultivator should have a 



