7 



The buds will have formed a good union by the end of three weeks 

 if they are ever going to do so and the budded branches should then be 

 cut off at a point a foot beyond the buds in order to force them out. 

 Some branches just above the buds should &lso be cut off close to the 

 tody of the tree so as to let in the light and air and to leave room for the 

 new growth from the buds. 



iMgure 2 is a photographic reproduction of a tree worked by this 

 method on the grounds of the Experiment Station at College Station, 

 Texas, April 7, 1919. The tree is six inches in diameter a foot above 

 the ground, and the four budded limbs range from an inch to two inches 

 in diameter near the body of the tree. Each of the four branches grew 

 toward one of the cardinal points of the compass, and their arrangement, 

 one above another, obviates the formation of a crotch. Not so much 

 as a single leaf of this tree was cut at the time of budding, and had the 

 buds not lived the tree would have been neither mutilated nor weakened. 

 Examination three weeks after budding, however, showed the buds to 

 have united, and the branches were then cut as above suggested, and all 

 branches above the budded ones were removed for a distance of three feet. 



The growth from the buds is now (November 26, 1919) from two 

 to three feet in length, and is in vigorous condition. The top of the 

 tree will be cut out just above the topmost budded limb before the sap 

 rises in the spring, and the forced growth of the budded portion will 

 soon provide leaves enough to perform the full functions of a top. 



A tree three inches in diameter that had grown in a forest and had 

 no low branches for budding had a new head formed in this way. The 

 buds were placed on the trunk of the tree five or six feet above ground, 

 and were forced out, not by cutting off the top of the tree, but by 

 wounds just above the topmost inserted bud. Each wound was a slight 

 saw-cut directly above the bud to be forced. The combined effect of 

 the wounds was not sufficient to entirely obstruct the passage of elab- 

 orated plant foods, but each wound did obstruct the pathway of passage 

 to its particular bud, and thus forced it out. 



The top of this tree will be removed before spring. 



All remarks about forcing buds apply, in point of time, to only those 

 operations performed before midsummer. Buds put on after that time 

 should be left dormant till the following spring, when the same methods 

 of forcing should be applied. 



