448 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



stump about two feet from the tree and then cutting across 

 its diameter near the base, leaving a wound like that shown 

 in Fig. 10. This is an improvement on the first opera- 

 tion, as the stump is shorter ; but even in this case the 

 bark on the stump will die, and that 

 on its lower surface, becoming loosened, 

 oilers lodgement for the seeds of decay, 

 until, when it finally falls oft*, decay 

 of the trunk has already commenced. 

 Even if, when hermetically sealed by 

 the healing of the Avound, it progresses 

 no farther (as claimed by Hartig), the 

 injury remains in the trunk. The ad- 

 vantage supposed to be secured by cut- 

 ting across the diameter of the limb 

 near the trunk is that the wound is 

 smaller than if made close to the trunk ; 

 but this idea is fallacious, for, as the 

 bark dies back, the surface to be cov- 

 ered b}^ the callus becomes larger than 

 would have been the case if the entire 

 stump had been removed at first. This sort of pruning is 

 one of the main causes of the decay of most of the older 

 orchards of this Commonwealth, where the pruning of our 

 fathers has produced the cavities in which the tree swallows, 

 bluebirds, wrens and flickers now build 

 their nests. There may not be so much 

 danger to young, vigorous trees in this 

 kind of pruning ; but trees ma}^ be injured, 

 nevertheless, by careless trimming of. the 

 head, even in the nursery. I examined 

 carefully to-day (June 1, 1902) two young 

 cherry trees received from the nurser}'^ in 

 the spring of 1901, and now dead. These 

 trees had been headed back, and the oper- 

 ator, in each case, had cut from one-half an inch to an inch 

 above a strong bud, in the manner generally approved, as 

 shown in Fig. 11< In each case the bud persisted, form- 

 ing a small shoot next season ; but the tree was unable to 



Fig. 10. — Wrong w;iy to 

 remove a' branch (cutfing 

 across diameter at base). 



Fig. U. — Twig from 

 young tree cut back' in 

 nursery. 



