68 CACAO 



sun and air in different situations can only be found by 

 long experience. 



It should be a rule when pruning that too many branches 

 should not be removed at once. It is a mistake to prune 

 heavily at any one time, as it gives the trees too great a 

 check, and causes too great a disturbance of the growth. 

 The effect of heavy pruning may be seen by the increased 

 growth of young shoots {chupons) which appear at or near 

 the place where branches have been removed. These, in 

 most cases, are quite useless and have to be removed, 

 causing a waste of plant energy, for if properly directed, 

 the material used up for their growth would have con- 

 siderably added to the health and strength of the tree. 

 In pruning neglected trees, the first thing to be done is to 

 cut out useless wood, or wood which can never be expected 

 to bear or to produce bearing branches, or wood that is 

 diseased or cankered. The next thing is to equalise or 

 balance the trees, and the last, to thin out the branches 

 and foreshorten them where required. 



In removing branches the greatest care should be exer- 

 cised not to make jagged, ragged, splintering or slivering 

 cuts, but to make clean and even cuts close to the wood 

 and near to a bud or young branch into which the sap 

 will be presently directed if the operation is well per- 

 formed. 



The young branches which are often found growing 

 erect (commonly called " gormandisers " from the rapidity 

 of their growth) are productions which show that the 

 parent stem, as it stands, does not provide sufficient 

 channels for the expenditure of the sap supplied by the 

 roots, and in consequence this sap provides for itself an 

 outlet, and expends itself upon the production of rapid 

 growth in other directions. It shows that the channels 

 for the conveyance of sap are clogged or contracted and , 

 that the amount of sap produced cannot pass into the 

 more matured portion of the tree. It is also an effort of 

 nature to recover itself from hard work. Every physi- 

 ologist knows that unless branches are produced roots 



