PRUNING 201 



pruning carried on with tools mounted on long poles. In 

 practice it is customary to prune high enough to produce clear 

 lumber for the first 16 to 25 feet above the ground. A large 

 proportion of the tree's volume will be contained in the butt log. 

 If the financial returns made possible by pruning are large, 

 then it may pay to prune an additional log or two, but for 

 the present the securing of a clear butt log is as far as the 

 operation is likely to be extended. 



Pruning should be started early because the limbs to be 

 cut will then be smaller and the core of knotty wood already 

 produced will be of small diameter. There is little use in 

 starting in the last half of the rotation to prune trees which 

 are already of merchantable size and whose limbs are large 

 and expensive to cut. The belt of clear wood added on such 

 trees may not be thick enough to pay for the operation. 

 Instead the pruning should commence when the lower branches 

 first start to die and at intervals of a few years be continued 

 on up the tree, until the desired length is freed of branches. 

 This applies whether dead limbs only are cut or dead and 

 some live branches in addition. It will require several (three 

 to four) prunings to clear the trunk of branches for 16 to 25 

 feet above the ground, but as one hundred or more trees on an 

 acre are pruned the work can be economically conducted. 

 Considering the saving in cutting small branches instead of 

 large ones, the cost of several partial prunings as contrasted 

 to one complete pruning should be cheaper. 



Where dead limbs only are pruned the work may be per- 

 formed during any convenient season of the year. In pruning 

 live limbs it is best to conduct the operation when the tree is 

 dormant. This is the period recommended for pruning in 

 orchard management as giving the best results in subsequent 

 wood growth, healing of the wounds and freedom from infec- 

 tion by fungi. 



