CHAPTER X. 



PRUNING. 



No well managed fruit tree is ever allowed an ur. disturbed 

 natural growth. If the knife should never approach it after 

 its iirst removal from the seed bed, it would become a dense 

 mass of branches, shoots and leaves, like a bush in a hedge- 

 row, and produce small and imperfect crops. Pruning is 

 therefore resorted to by every cultivator, but by many with 

 so little knowledge of its true principles, that the remedy is 

 sometimes even worse than the disease. 



Pruning has two principal objects; one, to give form to 

 the tree, and to promote the vigorous growth of the shoots 

 and branches ; and the other, to check the growth of certain 

 parts in order to favor the production of crops. 



1. To direct the growth. This department of pruning 

 should be commenced in the earliest stages of growth. By 

 watching in time the course that the tree or, branches are 

 taking, it becomes very easy to alter any objectionable form. 

 " Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," will apply 

 throughout in giving form to every young tree. Crooked 

 and crowded branches may be prevented without using any 

 tool larger than a small pruning-knife, by the early removal 

 of superabundant shoots, or by altering the growth of others. 

 It is even better to dispense altogether with the pruning 

 knife, and merely pinch off the fresh shoots while yet soft 

 and green. The strength of the soil and the energy of the 

 tree is not then expended in producing what is after all to 

 be cut and thrown away as useless. 



This branch of the subject will perhaps be more distinctly 

 understood by an explanation of a few practical details in 

 connexion with these principles. 



Every young tree needs attention as soon as it commences 

 growing from the bud or graft, near the surface of the earth. 

 If, as is the case with most trees, they are intended for 

 standards, that is, trees with a naked stem three to five feet 



