FORESTRY MANUAL. 5 



good cultivation, but the grass must not he fed off too close by them, lest they 

 strip off the bark from the trees. After an orchard, has been planted and 

 the trees have become well established the height at which they are to form 

 their heads should be determined, and, except in cases of upright growers, 

 like Benoni and Red June, the distance should not be less than four feet from 

 the ground. Where trees have been headed lower than this in the nursery 

 a pruning of the lower branches will have to be resorted to to produce the 

 desired result. "While some trees have a tendency to form too close a top, 

 others have a different habit, and the tendency of one can be checked by 

 thinning out and the habit of the others corrected by cutting back the 

 branches. Under the scorching suns and the blasting winds of our arid 

 climate a close top is preferable to an open one, and the pruning-knif'e should 

 be used with care, skill and judgment. The time to prune is at all times 

 except the cold weather of winter, for a branch that needs to be removed 

 should never be permitted to grow so large that it cannot be readil/ cut off 

 with an ordinary pocket-knife. If, however) pruning has been neglected 

 till the saw must be called into requisition I. know of no better time for its 

 use than late fall or early winter. Wounds then made rarely ever bleed, 

 and the part from which the circulation of sap is cut off becomes so well 

 dried and seasoned when the spring flow of sap commences that but little, if 

 any, decay take's place before the wound is healed over. Let the pruning be 

 done so that all cross-growing and in-growing branches be removed, and so 

 that the lowest branches shall be the largest and longest ones. If any nests 

 of the tent caterpillar have, escaped destruction the trees should be visited 

 soon after the buds burst in the spring, when the young insects will be found 

 pitching their tents in the forks of the limbs, where they can easily be de- 

 stroyed by the hand or be brushed off with a bunch of rags tied to the end of 

 a pole. Early in June the bodies and large limbs of the trees should have a 

 good washing in strong soap-suds or weak lye from wood ashes. This wash- 

 ing will keep the bark smooth and healthy, and prevent the formation of 

 hiding. places for insects. If borers have ever found a lodgment in any of 

 the trees they should be made the subject of watchful extermination. The 

 knife and wire probe are the best weapons of offense against these trouble- 

 some pests. A never-failing sign of their presence is their saw-dust-like 

 deposits about the roots. An application of. boiling lye from the spout of a 

 tea-kettle to the outside of their places of retreat is said to be effectual in 

 destroying them in the early stages of their existence. The advent of bark- 

 lice, canker-worms, cicadse, codling moths, fall web-worms and all other in- 

 sect enemies should be met with a fixed resolution for their immediate ex- 

 termination if possible; for while the price of berries may be a few cents per 

 quart, and of grapes two or three cents per pound, the price of apples is 

 " eternal vigilance." 



On the great prairies, the first trees planted should be the fast growing 

 ones. 



The new settler on the prairie, is in absolute need of some wind-break 

 that will modify the force of our summer storms, and our winter blizzards ; 



