252 



THE GARDENER'S ASSISTANT. 



and shrubs when wild. In Nature every plant, 

 and often every part of the plant, has to fight 

 for a place among its fellows. In the garden 

 this is not so. The cultivator's aim is to pro- 

 vide each plant with the conditions that will 

 develop those qualities which he most desires, 

 and by removing adverse influences, to enable 

 it to devote its whole energy to his own ends. 

 Of all the processes employed in horticulture 

 to bring about this object, pruning is the one 

 perhaps that most needs the exercise of thought 

 and intelligence and an acquaintance with the 

 nature of the plant on which it is employed. 

 Good pruning may immensely improve the 

 beauty or usefulness of a plant, but it is in- 

 finitely better to leave it alone than to prune it 

 badly. 



It has been said that pruning should be done 

 with the thumb and finger, meaning thereby 

 that the careful cultivator prevents superfluous 

 and objectionable growths by pinching them 

 out as soon as they appear. A great deal can 

 be done in this way, no doubt, but the amount 

 of attention such a method would entail in 

 a large garden is beyond our reach, an annual 

 overhauling being usually all we can accom- 

 plish. The theory of such a statement is, how- 

 ever, sound, and attention to the plants from 

 the first would no doubt result in quicker 

 development and a considerable gain in other 

 respects. 



If we consider for a moment we see how 

 untenable is the position of those who hold 

 that no tree or shrub should ever be touched 

 with knife or saw, on the assumption that 

 every plant, if let alone, will attain a truer 

 beauty than human skill can endow it with. 

 In the garden, at any rate, this does not take 

 place. Cripples come in the plant world just 

 as they do in the animal world, and it is as 

 illogical to allow a tree to grow stunted, ill- 

 balanced, or deformed as it would be to allow 

 a child to grow up with crooked legs which 

 straps and splints would straighten. Our 

 gardens, too, are in these days furnished with 

 trees and shrubs from eveiy temperate region 

 of the globe. Thus hundreds of species which 

 in their natural state grow under every variety 

 of conditions which mountain and plain, forest 

 and stream, or climate can afford, are brought 

 together in one place, where the conditions are 

 fairly uniform as regards climate, soil, and rain- 

 fall. The effects of this are seen in every 

 garden, trees and shrubs developing irregula- 

 rities in habit, size, &c, which, unless corrected 

 in time, would render them unsightly. It is in 



counteracting the influences that produce these 

 defects that the value of pruning greatly con- 

 sists. 



Pruning of Large Trees. — The pruner's aim 

 with regard to those ornamental trees and 

 shrubs which are grown not so much for beauty 

 of flower as for beauty of leaf and habit, should 

 be to help them to attain the greatest beauty 



Fig. 321.— Example of Young Tree that has never been pruned. 



of form without deviating from their natural 

 shape and habit. The two great enemies of 

 large trees are storms and parasitic fungi. The 

 best way to guard against the first of these is 

 to so control the building up of the tree that 

 it will best withstand their effects. Experience 

 has shown that lofty trees are safest when the 

 main trunk is straight, erect, and undivided. 

 The highest trees known, such as the Conifers 

 of California, the Eucalyptuses of Australia, and 

 the Palms of the tropics, have trunks of this 

 description. A tree whose trunk forks low 

 down, so as to divide the head of branches into 

 two or more parts, is very liable, in an exposed 

 position, to split in the fork owing to the sway- 

 ing of the separate parts set up by winds. 



