24 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



Pruning is necessary at times the same as surgery, and is successful only when 

 skilfully done. 



The best time for pruning is in the fall, soon after the leaves have dropped. 

 Trees may be pruned in the spring with safety, but it must be done early and before 

 there is any swelling of the buds. Soft maples will stand a moderate trimming 

 during the sap season. 



Whenever a branch is removed, whether a dead or a live one, it must be cut off 

 close to and even with the trunk, no matter how large the wound. The new wood 

 and bark will then, in time, cover the denuded space. The process by which this 

 recovery is accomplished is well explained in Des Cars' treatise on tree pruning, a 

 copy of which should be in the possession of every one who owns or has charge of 

 trees. If a branch is not cut off close to the trunk, the projecting stub soon decays, 

 its bark falls off, and the stump remains " like a plug of decaying wood driven into 

 the trunk," from which the rotten mass extends rapidly to the heart of the tree.* 



In removing a large branch, enough of the outer portion should be first sawed 

 off to prevent its weight from splitting the wood downward beyond the point where 

 the final cut is to be made. All wounds made in pruning should be covered with 

 coal tar or white lead to exclude the air from the raw surface. Coal or gas tar, by 

 penetrating the pores of the wood, acts as a preservative, and at the same time 

 prevents the inroads of fungi and insects. The painting of the exposed surface is 

 more efficacious if done when the sap has ceased its flow, for then the material 

 applied will adhere more readily to the wood. 



Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago John Evelynf in discussing the subject 

 of pruning says: " Putatio, or Pruning, is the purgation of trees in general from 

 what is superfluous. The antients found such benefit in pruning that they feigned 

 a Goddess presided over it, as Arnobius tells us : and, in truth, it is in the discreet 

 performance of this work that the improvement of our timber and woods does as 

 much consist as in anything whatsoever. It is a misery to see how our fairest trees 

 are defaced and mangled by unskillful wood-men and mischievous borderers, who go 

 always armed with short hand-bills, hacking and chopping off all that comes in their 

 way ; by which our trees are made full of knots, stubs, boils, cankers, and deformed 

 bunches, to their utter destruction. As much to be reprehended are those who 



*A treatise on Pruning Forest and Ornamental Trees. By A. Des Cars. Translated from French, 

 with an introduction by Charles S. Sargent, Professor of Arboriculture in Harvard College. Published 

 by the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. Boston. 1804, 



f Silva, A Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber. By John Evelyn, Esq., F. R. S. 

 Written in 1662. 2 Vols. 4to. 802 pp. 



