with a perceiving eye you will realize that among the 

 silent growing things there is going on as savage and 

 as ferocious a struggle for existence as ever took place 

 among half-starved beasts in the jungle. The weaker 

 shrubs or trees in each group or clump must succumb, 

 and the struggle is continued among the branches of 

 those which survive. Look at the full grown trees m 

 a thick piece of woods: many without a branch for 

 fifteen to thirty feet up. Nature is a pitiless pruner! 



Then why not leave the job of pruning to Nature? 



Because it means wasted effort on the part of the plant. 

 It is part of the gardener's business to save the plant 

 this unproductive effort. To do so means that the 

 plant's energies, before wasted in civil warfare, can 

 be devoted to the production of finer flowers, better 

 fruits, or additional growth. 



Moreover, while nature does the job of pruning 

 thoroughly enough to serve her own purpose, which in 

 most cases is the reproduction of the species, the gardener 

 may have 'a different purpose in mind. Nature is, 

 for instance, set upon the production of a large number 

 of apple seeds, and is not concerned if the "fruits" 

 in which they are borne, are small, bitter, and poorly 

 colored. The gardener, on the other hand, wants to 

 obtain large, juicy, and highly colored apples, and would 

 be tickled to death to get them, if he could, with no seeds 

 at all! 



Actual results have shown that judicious pruning 

 may not only accomplish these results, but actually 

 add to the vigor and total growth of the plant pruned. 



It is told of two Siberian crab apple trees, as near 

 alike as one could possibly get them, set out under the 

 same conditions. The next year (in February) one of 

 these was pruned, and the other was not. The same 

 season the pruned tree made fourteen feet more growth, 

 and stouter growth, than the unpruned! This is only 

 one instance, but it is representative of results which 

 have been obtained repeatedly, both in experiments 

 and in commercial work. 



There is, in short, no doubt that intelligent pruning 

 properly done is one of the greatest aids to the gardener 

 in obtaining better flowers and fruits. The question 

 is: when and how to do it? 



10 



