PRUNING. Ill 



these, if not pinched, acquire so much vigor as to injure 

 the leader, and produce a consequent deformity in the 

 tree. Figure 85 (A) represents a case of this kind, which 

 is very common, and too often neglected. The shoots, a, 

 #, ought to have been pinched the moment they began to 

 exhibit a disposition to outgrow the leader. There are 

 other cases, still worse than this, familiar to all tree 

 growers ; for instance, where a strong shoot is produced 

 on the middle or lower part of the stem, attracting an 

 undue proportion of the sap, thus contracting the growth 

 of all other parts, and giving the young tree a deformed 

 character. All such shoots as these should be nipped 

 early, the moment their character is apparent, and thus a 

 year's growth, nearly, will be saved to the tree, and its 

 proper form and proportions be preserved. In conducting 

 young trees for pyramids, the constant and careful appli- 

 cation of pinching is absolutely necessary, for in them we 

 must have the lower branches always the strongest and 

 longest, and it is only by operating on the shoots, in their 

 earliest stages of growth, that we can fully attain this 

 end; for the strongest shoots do not always grow at the 

 desired point, but by timely attention they are perfectly 

 within our control. The various accidents and circum- 

 stances to which young trees are subject, give rise, in a 

 multitude of cases, to an unequal distribution of the sap 

 in their different parts, and this produces, to a greater or 

 less extent, deformity of growth. This at once shows the 

 necessity for pinching, to check the strong and favor the 

 weak. 



Pinching to promote Fruitfulness. Those who have 

 never practised this, or observed its results, may have 

 seen, if experienced in tree growing, that a shoot of which 

 the point was broken, bruised, or otherwise injured, dur- 

 ing the growing season, frequently becomes a fruit branch 

 either during the same or the following season ; and this, 

 especially if situated in the interior of the tree, or on the 



