210 Pruning Fruit-Trees. 



PRUNING FRUIT-TREES. 



This is a subject about which there is much controversy; and thousands 

 of valuable trees, in nearly every part of the United States, have been 

 ruined by applying the knife improperly. Persons in the rural districts 

 have been led to believe in spring-pruning. Itinerant charlatans have, from 

 time to time, traversed the country at that season, lopping off huge branches 

 without number, leaving the crippled trunks to eke out a miserable exist- 

 ence, and finally to dwindle and perish, to the great satisfaction of those who 

 loathe the sight of a mutilated orchard. Soon after the branches are thus 

 severed, what are known as " weather-cracks " appear in the newly-cut 

 wood ; and water penetrates as far as the original nodes from which the lost 

 branches sprung, where rotten nuclei are soon formed near the heart of 

 '.he tree, and not unfrequently extend their deadly effects several feet above 

 the wounded parts. Innumerable adventitious shoots, better known as 

 " water-sprouts," are produced near the decaying wood, that the super- 

 abundant sap, otherwise provided for the lost branches, may circulate. 

 These " water-sprouts " bear no fruit. In time, they rob the old fruit-bear- 

 ing limbs of nourishment ; and the worthless, crippled, unsightly object is 

 cut down as a cumberer of the ground. 



Now, there are but two ways and times for pruning fruit-trees. Vine- 

 pruning is a very different thing. If I wish to cut back the shoots of 

 young trees to make the tops bushy, or rather low and dense, or any other 

 shape that may be desired, the cutting is done just before, or at the time, 

 the buds are bursting in spring. All heading-in to form properly-shaped 

 tops on young trees should be done about the first of April, when the as- 

 cending sap will find vent by pushing a number of eyes which otherwise 

 might remain dormant. But this will not always apply when the knife is 

 used on any other than last year's growth. The buds on healthy shoots 

 two years old will generally push near the top where a part has been 

 cut away, but cannot be relied on when nearly all are required to fill open 

 spaces and form a dense symmetrical top. 



The cutting of large branches from bearing trees should be avoided as 

 much as possible. Nature generally sends the shoots where they are 



