INSTRUMENTS FOR PRUNING. 



297 



able of doing such work intelligently, causes, no doubt, 

 many arboriculturists to completely neglect pruning of 

 every kind. 



" The Dendroscope. The tree requiring pruning 

 should be carefully studied from the ground, that the 

 operator may be able to judge intelligently which 

 branches should be removed or shortened in order to 

 reduce it to the desired shape. This may at first 

 seem difficult to beginners in the art of pruning ; and 

 a dendroscope, the name suggested for a simple little 

 contrivance," may be here used with advantage. A 



Fig. 14. 



dendroscope may be made from a piece of thin board 

 or cardboard (a playing-card answers the purpose), in 

 which a hole, of the shape it is desired to reduce the 

 tree to, has been cut. Across the middle of the hole, 

 from top to bottom, a piece of fine wire is stretched to 

 serve as a guide to the eye " (see fig. 14). 



" Holding the dendroscope at the level of the eye, 

 with the wire opposite the centre of the trunk of the 

 tree to be studied, the operator approaches the tree 

 until the bottom of the cut falls on the trunk at the 

 ground-line. It is easy to see at a glance, with the 



