270 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



the root may send up the elements of food, they 

 cannot benefit the plant for want of leaves to con- 

 vert them into vegetable blood. It is no argument 

 against this position, that deciduous trees spontane- 

 ously develop foliage and flowers in the spring. 

 There is a store of elaborated sap laid up in autumn 

 to effect this. Strip a tree entirely of its leaves in 

 June, when this store is exhausted, and the tree will 

 not grow, and probably will die. The stem, at least, 

 will sustain serious injury. The nurseryman knows 

 that, after an apple, pear, or plum stock has been cut 

 down and grafted upon, the heart-wood becomes 

 unsound if the graft fails to grow, and the whole 

 stock dozy, and, in a manner, worthless for a future 

 scion, and that it will not grow a particle above 

 where it sends off suckers. 



The tendency of pruning to generate disease and 

 to shorten the life of trees is illustrated in the ap- 

 pearance of old orchards which have been injudi- 

 ciously pruned. Wherever a limb is split off by 

 winds or accident, it will be seen to expose a dis- 

 eased heart-wood ; and this disease at the heart 

 spreads to the roots and branches, and induces pre- 

 mature death. The natural duration of the apple- 

 tree is believed to be more than one hundred years ; 

 and yet how few are found in a healty state at fifty 

 years ! Mark the contrast, in soundness of wood, 

 in vigour of growth, and in duration of life, between 

 the apple and other frequently-pruned trees, and 

 those trees, whether fruit or forest, which are left 

 to luxuriate naturally, without the artificial aid of 

 the pruning-knife. 



If pruning be prejudicial to growth and longevity, 

 v> liy, then, we may be asked, prune at all ? We an- 

 swer, for utility, to give beauty to the tree, and to 

 improve and increase the fruit. 



In natural forest-growth, trees attain height, and 

 a straight, clear timber form, from their crowded sit- 

 uation ; and as the lower branches become useless, 



