66 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



even-where — orchards of "leggy" trees, their 

 bearing surface reduced to a mere tuft of 

 branches thirty feet from the ground. The 

 owner trimmed them up, so they would 



83. The rotten hole goes into the heart of the 

 tree. It would not have rotted if the wound had been 

 painted. There is no way of saving the tree now 



84. Never leave a stub. The tree is rotten 

 hearted now. The next high wind will blow it down. 

 All of this could have been easily prevented 



85. Every wound can be healed as perfectly as 

 this. A limb five inches thick was removed five years 

 ago. We can assist nature by keeping out the rot 

 while the healing process is going on. Paint does this 



have more room! The very best style of 

 pruning for such orchards, if the trees are 

 not more than twenty to twenty-five years 

 old and are still healthy, is to cut out at least 



every other tree. This will give the re- 

 mainder a chance to spread. There is more 

 surface for bearing fruit on one symmetrical, 

 well-rounded-out tree, shaped like an inverted 

 bushel basket, than on three trees of the 

 telegraph pole kind which one. sees in many 

 home orchards. Don't squeeze trees in the 

 orchard like pines in a forest. Give them a 

 chance to spread out, root and branch, and 

 so do their best. 



THE TIME OP YEAR TO PRUNE 



What time of the year shall I prune? 

 Again I should be glad to take refuge in gen- 

 eralities. Of course, there is no one best 

 time for pruning. The old saw, "Prune 

 when your knife is sharp," is good advice so 

 far as it goes, provided the man only cuts 

 out suckers and wayward or superfluous 

 shoots as they appear. The man who takes 

 pride in the appearance of his fruit garden 

 will nip here and check there all the growing 

 season. But the main pruning should be 

 done when the tree is dormant. Pruning is 

 amputation. No matter how considerately 

 done, it is always a shock to the tree. The 

 shock is much less, generally, if the operation 

 is performed when the vital energies of the 

 tree are quiescent. Pruning can be done at 

 any time between the fall of the leaves and 

 the bursting of the buds, but it is usually best 

 to wait until early spring — February or 

 March, in most sections — because then the 

 wound soon begins to heal. If pruning is 

 clone in early winter, the remaining limbs are 

 more likely to winter-kill, especially with 

 peaches and plums; and, moreover, the 

 cut surfaces evaporate much moisture from 

 the tree, reducing its vitality and making it 

 more liable to winter injury. Just before the 

 sap rises is the ideal lime to prune in most 

 cases. 



WHERE SUMMER -PRUNING IS ALLOWABLE 



Summer pruning is advantageous only 

 when trees are growing over-vigorously, to 

 the detriment of their fruitfulness. Summer 

 pruning is one of the best ways of checking 

 this undue growth if the cessation of tillage 

 and withholding of fertilizers fail to do it. 

 Young trees on very rich soil, which are late 

 in coming into bearing, may sometimes be 

 thrown into bearing by summer pruning. 

 Keeping in mind the principle, "Checking 

 growth induces fruitfulness," and remem- 

 bering that summer pruning does check 

 growth severelv, since it removes a large 

 number of those plant kitchens — the leaves. 

 The home orchardist can decide if his trees 

 need this special treatment. Summer prun- 

 ing is a special treatment for special cases. 

 Spring pruning is generally best for the 

 majority of trees, which have not made an 

 unusually heavy growth. 



don't leave long stubs r 



Be careful — be very careful how you make 

 the cuts. A few weeks ago I examined 

 twenty-eight small home orchards from fif- 

 teen to twenty-five years old. Of the 040 

 trees which were originally set in these 

 orchards, 328 are now gone, and twenty-eight 

 more are blown down, split open — rotten- 



86. On left, two large limbs removed, showing 

 growth of callus in one year when cut is made in 

 the proper place and when wound is painted. On 

 right, wound all healed 



87. We can help a wound to heal when the callus 

 begins to harden by slitting it with a knife on the 

 inside, in March. This lets the callus grow. When 

 it covers thewound. germs of fungi can not longer 

 enter 



Where to make the cut. Sawed close to 

 main current of sap which is to cover the wound. 

 A long stub is out of the current. Careful men pare 

 the wound left by the saw with a sharp knife and 

 paint the scar to keep out germs 



89. How to make the cut. Leave no stub. Saw 

 close, just beyond the bulge where the limb joins the 

 trunk, and parallel with the trunk— not at right angles 

 to the limb being sawed off, as most people will tell 

 you. Figure 88 shows why 



