Callusing and Repairing 



95 



trimmed back, if the wound is not covered at once with 

 wax — which keeps it moist and the cambium layer at the 

 circumference active, so that it can form a callus under the 

 wax — the twig dries out and dies back for a shorter or 

 longer space. The cambium below the dead portion will, 

 of course, seek to repair the damage, and its activity will 

 make itself apparent in a bulge of the bark, and when the 

 dead stump has broken oflf, the 

 callus will proceed, as described 

 above, to cover the ragged 

 wound. 



]More frequently and prefer- 

 ably, a bud below the dead 

 pcrticn ^^ill start into life and 

 grow into a shoot ; the shoot will 

 tend to take the direction of the 

 mother branch and by its growth 

 at the base will ex-pedite the 

 sloughing ofif of the dead por- 

 tion; in this way the wound is 

 covered more rapidly and com- 

 pletely than by the ordinary- 

 callusing process. Thus in a 

 short time its existence is only to be inferred by a crook in 

 the branch; and eventually even this crook may be 

 outgrown. 



Hence in trimming back, care should be taken to cut 

 near to a strong bud or branch, and yet not near enough to 

 have the bud itself dry out or be injured. \\'hat should be 

 the distance of the bud from the wound depends on a vari- 

 ety of conditions, which influence the rapidity and intensity 

 of the dr\ing out of the stub. If cut in the spring, shortly 

 before or after the activitv of the buds has begun, the cut 



Fig. 25. — A bud below the ter- 

 minal branch starting into ac- 

 tive growth to supplant the lost 

 limb. 



