TREE PRUNING. 



but it is the over-thinning, whereby branches and knotty 

 trunks are produced and the supposed need for pruning 

 follows, that I wish to deprecate and entirely dissent from 

 Grow your timber trees so thickly on the ground that the 

 stems are induced to become straight, clean, and branchless 

 for the greater part of their height, and on no account admit 

 sufficient light and air to cause the lower branches to be 

 retained intact, or, in other words, at all times retain an 

 unbroken leaf canopy. The necessity for pruning will 

 then be entirely done away with, and a more valuable class 

 of timber produced. The losses sustained through inju- 

 dicious planting and the unnecessary and ruinous practice 

 of pruning have taught a lesson that is fraught with good 

 for the tree planter of the future. 



There are a few cases, however, where pruning is quite 

 justifiable, and where the abuse of a system should furnish 

 no argument against its legitimate use. Hedgerow and 

 field timber, for the sake of the live fences, the grass, or 

 the grain crop in the vicinity, may require attention in 

 the way of judicious pruning, but this has been fully dealt 

 with in the chapter under " Hedgerow and Field Timber," 

 and need not not be repeated here. 



Again, pruning is often a necessity where standard trees 

 are grown in conjunction \\ith coppice wood, as by shorten- 

 ing of the lower branches the undergrowth in consequence 

 becomes much improved. 



Pruning Live Branches. In and around London, as 

 well as many other large centres of industry, the hack- 

 ing and hewing, pruning we cannot call it, to which 

 trees are subjected is barbarous in the extreme, and calls 

 for the strongest denunciation. To annually prune and 

 elbow in such noble forest trees as the lime and plane, 

 in order that the restricted growth may render them 

 iSui table for the cramped positions in which they have 

 been unwisely planted, is little short of vandalism. The 

 lime and plane, perhaps, suffer most in this way, for as 

 soon as they have overgrown the allotted space an annual 

 system of pruning back the branches is resorted to, the 

 result being great mop-headed protuberances at the points 



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