TREE PRUNING. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



THE appearance of many trees, their trunks cov- 

 ered with gaping wounds, protuberances, and the 

 stumps of dead branches, clearly indicates that they 

 have received careless or ignorant treatment. It is 

 evident even to persons little familiar with the art 

 of Sylviculture that such trees are decayed to the 

 heart, and of little value for industrial purposes. 

 The number of trees thus affected is very great, 

 and the annual aggregate loss to the community 

 from the bad management to which trees are every- 

 where subjected is enormous. Such a condition is 

 the result generally of entire neglect of pruning, 

 or often, perhaps, of an unnatural and therefore 

 improper system. 



The idea of increasing the productive capacity of 

 forests by systematic pruning is not a new one, no 

 process of Sylviculture has been more often discussed. 

 In Belgium, where more than in any other country 



