PRUNING AND TRAINING. 127 



early spring-time to pinch off certain buds that would grow 

 into branches which would have to be cut off. Here lies 

 the great secret of scientific pruning and training pinch- 

 ing off a bud that would make a branch which must be cut 

 off. A pruner who is master of his employment, can glance 

 at a young tree, see where there are buds, and in three min- 

 utes prune it with his thumb-nail, so that the tree may need 

 no more care for the entire season. Again, another young 

 tree, like a perverse youth, may require pinching a little 

 every month during the growing season. These sugges- 

 tions will furnish a beginner with some correct notions as 

 to the proper time for pruning. 



Trees which have been properly managed during their 

 whole growth will never need the cutting away of large 

 limbs, unless they have been injured by teams or broken 

 by snow or wind. Pinching buds and cutting off branches 

 will always depend so much on circumstances, that a begin- 

 ner must first make himself familiar with all the operations 

 of pruning before he will be competent to train fruit-trees 

 of any kind. When he has learned how to prune correctly, 

 he will have a more perfect understanding as to the most 

 proper period during the entire year. He must bear in 

 mind that we often prune to diminish nutritive vigor, and 

 prune to increase it; to diminish the generative or fruit- 

 producing tendency, and to increase it ; to encourage the 

 feeble, and reduce the over-luxuriant. By a variation in the 

 same process, under favorable circumstances, we can para- 

 lyze the leaf-bud, producing thereby a blossom-bud ; and 

 we can stimulate the blossom-bud until a leaf-bud will be 

 developed. 



Where to cut off Branches. Nature has indicated, even 

 in the smallest twig, the proper place to cut off a branch. 

 By examining a branch close to the body of a tree, it will 

 be seen that there . are creases, beads, or rings running 



