THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRUNING 41 



sumes that a plant has a certain fixed vitality, from which 

 a given amount is withdrawn whenever a portion of the 

 plant is cut away. I might illustrate this by supposing 

 that a plant has an initial vitality represented by the 

 number 10; then, if one-tenth of the top is removed, there 

 is left a vitality of 9. But this assumption is wholly 

 gratuitous. Vitality is very largely determined by the 

 conditions under which a plant grows — the character of 

 the soil and treatment. As plants have no nerves, they 

 cannot die of shock, as we sometimes hear it said. 



Every fruit grower knows that two trees, of the same 

 initial vigor, if given different soil and care, may differ 

 widely from each other in thrift and healthfulness at the 

 expiration of five years. If the plant is very largely what 

 its food supply and other environments make it to be, if 

 it is constantly renewed and augmented, then the removal 

 of a portion of it cannot destroy its vitality unless the re- 

 moval is so great as to interfere with the nutrition of the 

 remaining parts. It may be replied that the tissue, the 

 wood, which is removed in large limbs, might have been 

 saved to the tree by directing it into other parts of the 

 top by means of earlier pruning. This may be true ; but 

 this saving would have resulted only in an economy of 

 time by building up the other parts earlier in the lifetime 

 of the tree, and not in an economy of vitality, for vitality 

 is constantly renewed. 



43. Early pruning as a life saver. — It may be a question 

 if we really save a proportionate amount of time by early 

 pruning; that is, whether we can direct the same amount 

 of growth into the remaining portions of the plant by 

 pruning very early in its lifetime, as we can by pruning 

 when the superfluous branches have attained some size 

 and have, perhaps, begun to bear. There is an exact 

 balance between the root-system and the superficial 

 growth of the plant. The more active and efficient the 

 root, the larger the top. If we remove a large portion of 



