GARDEN LABOURS WITH PLANTS. 203 



Sawing is the most convenient mode of separating large branches, 

 because it effects the separation with less labour than cutting with the 

 axe or the bill, and also with less waste of wood. In sawing off large 

 branches, whether close to the trunk or at a distance from it, it is ad- 

 visable to cut a notch in the under side of the branch, or to enter the 

 saw for a few inches in depth there, and in the same plane with the 

 proposed saw-cut, in order to prevent the bark from being torn down 

 when the branch is sawn through and drops off. It is also advisable 

 to smooth over the section with a chisel or knife, in order that it may 

 not retain moisture ; and to cover the entire wound with a cataplasm 

 of some sort, or with putty, or with paint, in order to exclude the air, 

 and by that means to facilitate the process of healing. 



Cutting and sawing are essentially the same operation ; for the com- 

 mon saw is formed of a series of wedges cut in the edge of a thin plate 

 of steel, and the knife only differs in having these wedges so small and 

 so close together as not to be perceptible to the naked eye. In cutting 

 living plants a smooth unbruised section will be more easily healed 

 over than a rough one ; hence, in all cutting or amputating, the rough 

 or fractured section ought to be on the part amputated. In separating 

 a branch, or cutting through a stem, with an axe, bill, or chisel, this 

 result is effected by the obliquity of the strokes of the instrument to 

 the direction of the body to be cut through, and with a knife by draw- 

 ing it more or less obliquely across the shoot ; but principally by the 

 non-resistance offered by the part of the shoot to be cut off. Hence 

 all shoots cut from living plants ought to have the cut made in an out- 

 ward direction from the stem or root of the plant ; because if the 

 reverse of this practice were adopted, as is sometimes done in plashing" 

 hedges, the fractured section would be left on the plant. Every cut 

 made in a living plant ought to be sufficiently near a bud or a shoot 

 to be healed over by its influence, and the section made should never be 

 more oblique than is necessary to secure its soundness and smoothness. 

 In general, therefore, the separation of all branches from living plants 

 ought to be made by cutting or sawing across at very nearly a right 

 angle to the direction of the stem, or branch, in order that it may be 

 the more rapidly healed over. When due attention is not paid to this 

 rule, and the cut is made very obliquely to the line 

 of the shoot, a wedge-like stump is left protruding 

 beyond the bud or branch, as in fig. 164, a, which 

 never can be healed over, and which, consequently, 

 soon decays, and disfigures and injures the tree, by 

 retaining water and bringing on the rot ; but when 

 the cut is made not more than the thickness of the 

 branch above the bud or shoot, and nearly directly 

 across, as at b, the wound is healed over completely 

 and in the shortest possible time. It must be observed, a, a shoot impro- 

 however, that the distance of the cut above the bud Pfty cut; b a 

 must depend in a great measure on the porosity of the ' pro 

 wood of the shoot, and the proportion of its diameter 

 which is occupied by the pith ; for if the raspberry and the vine 



