408 GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 



to these processes of nature, and endeaTOur to imitate them as closely 

 as we are able ? 



"In order to produce the most beneficial effects, the process of 

 pruning should be begun early, and not carried to any great extent at 

 once, but renewed every year as the tree advances, until it is brought 

 to the most perfect form its nature wiU admit of. At this early period 

 the knife is the most suitable implement, and the top is the principal 

 part which requires attention. In order that only one shoot may be 

 allowed to remain as a leader, the others next in size, if not very 

 inferior, should be headed down generally to about one half the length, 

 and all the stout branches on the tree headed in the same manner. 

 If the tree be stunted, care must be taken to select a leader that is 

 healthy. 



"We cannot too strongly reprobate the common error of clearing 

 young trees entirely of the side branches up to a certain height at the 

 first pruning, and afterwards to operate only on the imder branches of 

 the tree. This tends to produce a small trunk, an irregular top, and 

 side branches more vigorous than the leader. When this is practised 

 in exposed places (hedge-rows), not one in a hundred ever becomes a 

 large or valuable tree. It is one great and common error to cut off in 

 one year branches to the height perhaps of fourteen feet from a tree not 

 above twenty feet high. When this is done the trees remain nearly 

 stationary, and are often stunted to such a degree as to assume the 

 appearance of old age. Such an excess of amputation destroys the 

 health of the tree, by depriving it of the organs by which a sufficiency 

 of sap is secured, to be afterwards converted into wood. 



"It is well known that when the leading shoot is destroyed, the 

 growth of the tree is greatly impaired. It is the danger of losing it 

 which makes wise planters so careful in fenciag their plantations. By 

 increasing the number of leading shoots the strength of the nutritious 

 principle is rendered in a great measure ineffectual. To counteract the 

 deviation of a strong vertical tendency from nature's own more perfect 

 forms, and to confine to the production of one valuable stem the vegeta- 

 tive power which in a forked tree luxuriates in a multiplicity of 

 branches with comparatively trifling effect, is the main object of the 

 system here advocated. Pruning is only of much advantage when 

 performed early in those branches which are apt to bear too great a 

 proportion to the leading branch, thereby modifying the tree, and 

 directing its energies gradually to the top, preserving at the same time 

 a sufficient quantity of foliage. 



" By proper pruning trees can stand closer together without requiring 

 to be thinned, and the whole of the branches are enabled to retain their 

 vegetative power and live for any length of time in luxuriant beauty. 

 By a different management we often see trees thus reduced to the 

 appearance of so many tufted poles, presenting no obstruction to the 



