80 



THE APPLE. 



ing warm days in March, before the sap starts, as the removal of a 

 large amount of foliage in June might give a serious check to the 

 tree. Scions for grafting are generally cut in November, before 

 severe weather. Very light pruning may be done safely at almost 

 any time, except as noted above. If the work of pruning is pro- 

 perly attended to there will be no need of heavy pruning, and gen- 

 erally a little pinching or rubbing off of the growth in summer is 

 sufficient. In a northern climate it is better not to prune at all 

 than to prune too much, and apple trees only need to have inter- 

 locking and straggling branches removed or shortened. They need 

 all their wood for the protection it affords. All wounds over one- 

 half inch in diameter should be covered with grafting wax. 



When trees are received they should have all broken or bruised 

 roots removed, and the ends of all roots cut off smooth. The top, 

 too, should be cut back about one-half or more of its new growth to 

 correspond to the loss of roots. Some varieties— the Wealthy, for 

 instance— will sometimes kill back severely and then sprout from 

 the roots. In such a case the sprouts should be encouraged to 

 make a new tree, which they will do very quickly if given a little 

 care, and then they are often more productive than ever. 



Injured Trees.- One of the most common forms of injury to 

 trees is girdling by mice or rabbits. If the girdling is not com- 

 plete, even though only a small part of the inner bark extends 

 across the wound, the best treatment is to bank up around it with 

 earth, and this is good treatment for any wound. If injury of any 

 kind is so far from the ground that banking up is impracticable*, 

 the wound should be covered with grafting wax and cloth, or with 

 clay or cow manure, so as to exclude the air. When large wounds 

 are left exposed they do not heal readily, and often the wood sea- 

 sons through and permanent injury results. Covering the wounds 

 with heavy paper, even without other protection, aids very much 



Fig. bi—Girdled tree icith wound bridged over. A, a girdled trunk. 

 B, scions inserted; C, method of inserting scions. 



in the healing process. Another way of saving girdled trees is to 

 wait until the bark peels freely ani then spring in scions long 

 enough to connect the sound inside bark above and below the in- 

 jury. The ends of long scions are cut all on one side and shoved 

 under the bark as in budding (Fig. 54). The tree eagerly seizes 



