54 PRUNING 
When pruning older trees, one should always at the 
same time cut out any branches which may be broken 
or injured, or which may be chafing against other 
branches. All such wounds open the door to attacks of 
fungoid and insect enemies. 
Time To Prune.—Pruning should be done as near to 
the bursting of the leaf as possible, but it must be begun 
sufficiently early so as to admit of the whole of the work 
being completely finished before a speck of green leaf 
appears. March is, as a rule, the month in which to 
prune. But pruning may be done in January and 
February, though in that case there are two or three 
practical rules to be observed. Do not prune when the 
thermometer registers more than 10 degrees of frost. If 
you have to prune thus early trees which are naturally 
tender, or which occupy an exposed position, do not cut 
just above a bud, but cut right through the bud, so as to 
destroy it, and select for destruction in this way a bud 
which grows in a direction different from the bud you 
want to keep—namely, the bud next below it. By doing 
this you will leave a short stub of wood beyond the last 
uninjured bud. This stub will probably die, and so 
leave the real extremity of the branch at the highest 
bud which is not destroyed. The bud you want to study 
and choose at an inner or outward position, as the case 
may be, is this bud. 
Summer Prunine.—Pruning in March (or February 
or January) is called “winter pruning.” Its principal 
result or effect is generally considered to be the promotion 
cf wood growth—that is, the building up and develop- 
ment of the tree. But there is also summer pruning, 
