214 PRUNING. 



be a fit and proper object in a lonely glen or rugged 

 ravine, where a hazardous adventure once or twice in 

 a lifetime may be indulged in to witness the scene, 

 yet the same object in the lawn, or near the mansion, 

 seen by the same eyes day by day, would be univer- 

 sally denounced as an outrage and insult to all refined 

 taste and feeling. 



It must therefore be seen that the- line here must 

 not, after all, be too rigidly and exclusively drawn ; 

 for although the tree is grown purely and simply as 

 a natural object, yet extenuating circumstances may 

 arise whereby pruning is rendered necessary, or at 

 least desirable, and should therefore unhesitatingly 

 be put into practice, as illustrated in the following 

 cases : — 



1. When a tree, large or small, has been trans- 

 planted from the nursery to the forest, from rich to 

 poor soil, from wet soil to dry, from clay to sand, from 

 loam to moss, from a sheltered to an exposed situation. 



2. To lighten the top of a large tree that has been 

 newly transplanted, which is either done by cutting off 

 the top of the tree at a certain distance down, or by 

 lightening some of the larger and heavier limbs and 

 branches. 



3. When the tree at any period prior to its destined 

 height of stem branches off into a spreading top with- 

 out a leader. 



4. When a tree from various causes, but prin- 

 cipally from the loss of its original top, divides into 

 two parts, each contending for the mastery. 



5. When the branches grow off from the main stem 

 at an acute angle, causing the bark between the two 

 surfaces to gall at their junction ; all such branches 

 should be timeously pruned off to prevent the limbs 



