

COPPICE WITH STAND AEDS. 161 



result is a solution of continuity, which renders the 

 wood unfit for cask staves. Often the bark hears 

 perpetual marks of these climbing-irons. The healed 

 wound appears as a shorter or longer slit, on each 

 side of which the bark, after meeting, swells up very 

 much in the same way as in a covered diametral 

 fault. 



It is to dispense with climbing-irons that pruning- 

 hooks fixed at the end of poles six to ten feet long 

 are employed with advantage. If a sufficient height 

 cannot be reached with this instrument, the best 

 thing to do is to use a light ladder, which can be 

 carried about easily from tree to tree and which 

 leaves both hands free. 



If pruning has been too long delayed, and the 

 epicormic branches have acquired a diameter of two 

 inches, it is often more expedient to let them alone 

 or to cut down the tree if it holds out no further 

 promise ; otherwise numerous and large wounds 

 would inevitably be occasioned in the bole of the 

 tree, and new faults in the wood would be added to 

 those which have perhaps already been caused by 

 the infiltration of water through the dead branches 

 in the crown. 



It usually happens that after epicormic branches 

 have been got rid of, others are produced. There 

 must be no hesitation in pruning these off too. But 

 they will be weaker and less numerous than the 

 first ; and if the operation has been properly 

 performed, there is very seldom any necessity for 

 repeating it a third time. 



As to the best time for pruning, since it is above 

 M 



