CHAPTER VIII: THE PRUNING OF TREES 



Pruning is the cutting out of parts of a tree for the improve- 

 ment of the parts that remain. Cleaning might better designate 

 the removal of dead wood. Trimming is the shaping of the out- 

 Hne, as the shearing of hedges and individuals of box and yew 

 into formal or grotesque figures. Training is the bringing of the 

 tree to some desired arrangement of its limbs, as the espalier 

 fruit trees, that lie flat against a wall in European gardens. 



All green plants need sun and air, as well as room for roots. 

 Trees crowd out other plants in close forests. Where thousands 

 of saplings start in a plot of woodland, only hundreds reach middle 

 life, and only tens, maturity. In every treetop the story of 

 continuous thinning is repeated. The trunk and limbs are full 

 of knots which the bark has healed over. They are records of 

 twigs and large branches that failed. A dozen apple blossoms 

 make up a single cluster. Two or three apples at most mature, and 

 they are inferior to the apple that grows alone, sole survivor of the 

 dozen May promises. Every well-grown leaf nurses a bud at its 

 base. Next year these buds send out shoots, each with leaves 

 that nurture other buds. These twigs are stifled by the crowding. 

 The weaklings die. On the stronger ones the leaves in the shade 

 turn yellow and fall. The weak buds fail even to start in sprmg. 

 As the tree's crown grows larger, many branches are overshadowed. 

 Their leaves languish and die. The whole bough declines, and at 

 length snaps off. Nature sacrifices the many to the few — the 

 weak for the good of the strong. It is the law of the survival of 

 the fittest. 



Pruning is a practice we learn directly from Nature. Yet 

 there are those who decry it as "unnatural"! The difference 

 is that man does a much better job — where he knows what he is 

 about. The quack tree doctor, alas! too often takes the case, 

 and then it were far better to have let Nature manage the affair 

 herself. The peripatetic tree pruner is almost always a tree 

 butcher, a menace to the well-being of any self-respecting, tree- 

 loving community. He preys upon the good intentions and the 



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