FRUIT TREES. Chap. IV. 65 



until the beginning of March, or earlier or later depending on the kind of tree & how far 

 along the season has advanced. 



Pruning trees just when the flowers are in bloom or faded, or even when the fruit 

 is set, is a practice certain to be fraught with difficulties and inconveniences. Whose hand 

 is so skilled & so adept that he won't damage, disturb, or detach a lot of the flowers or 

 fruit, nor make a cut without harming the growth of a the bud at a point where the 

 pruning is done, or train the branches correctly? Whose eye can discern & distinguish his 

 work among the confusion of branches, flowers, fruit, and leaves after they've already 

 opened up? What a shock & disruption to the whole tree when the production already 

 begun in all of its parts is suddenly interrupted! What a waste of the sap that would have 

 nourished the fruit, strengthened the branches just pruned & healed up their wounds! 

 What a depletion, especially at the base of the tree, is the unavoidable result of pruning 

 that had to be done much farther away, because the sap already had been transported out 

 to the ends of the branches and the fruit had set only in those places! &c. I'm just 

 pointing out the main faults of this practice; they're detailed in several good treatments of 

 this topic. Whoever will have tried it once won't be tempted to do so a second time. 



Article I L On Priming Trees in (he Open. 



A tree grown on location in the open, or in an individual nursery, managed & 

 planted as we've explained above, is trimmed as soon as it has grown the branches that 

 will determine its shape & that will serve as a basis for all of the branches that it 

 subsequently will produce. From each one of these branches pruned back to three or four 

 buds, one or more new ones will emerge. The following February, four to eight branches 

 at most are selected 



