THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



67 



90. Suckers or water sprouts, the result of too heavy 

 pruning. To avoid them, prune lightly every year 

 and rub off those that come as soon as they appear. 

 They sap the vitality of the tree and seldom become 

 the best bearing branches 



91. Pruning tools. The inside shears are belter. 

 You will need both styles of saws ; the thin one 

 reaches limbs that cannot be sawed off conveniently 

 with the other. The pruning-hacK, for raspberries 

 and blackberries, is made out of an old file. The 

 long.handled tree-pruner is for heading-in tall trees 

 and removing small, high branches 



hearted. This loss of 30 per cent, is not 

 greater, I believe, than the average loss in 

 home orchards of that age the country over. 

 What is the cause ? Carelessness. Some of 

 those missing trees the borers fattened in; 

 some the mice girdled; some the plow 

 barked; some the sod killed; but I am con- 

 vinced from my examination of the remainder 

 that two-thirds of them died from the effects 

 of careless pruning. Where limbs had been 

 removed in past years, I found stubs from 

 three to twelve inches long. The idea was 

 to keep the rot, which would start at the cut 

 end, away from the tree ! Then the long stubs 

 make such convenient places for hanging 

 baskets and climbing around the tree! The 

 results may be seen in thousands of orchards 

 the country over. The wounds do not heal 

 and the rot does get in, and work down into 

 the trunk. Some windy day the owner finds 

 one of his trees blown down — rotten-hearted! 



HOW TO MAKE A WOUND HEAL 



Long stubs never heal well. They are 

 out of the way of the flow of sap which con- 

 tains the healing material. Nothing can 

 draw this up to the wound except leaves, and 

 the stubs have no leaves, unless suckers ap- 

 pear. Saw close. We "want to cover that 

 wound with healing tissue — the "callus" — 



just as soon as possible. As long as it 

 remains open it is a menace to the tree. We 

 can help Nature by using a sharp saw — 

 ragged wounds heal slowly ; and by covering 

 the wound with some aseptic material while 

 it is healing. Shellac, coal tar and grafting 

 wax are sometimes used, but paint is best. 

 White lead is much better than ochre for this 

 purpose. Make it thick, so it will not run, 

 and brush it thoroughly into the wood. The 

 paint does not help the wound to heal directly, 

 but it keeps the wood sound while the wound 

 is healing, and prevents the evaporation of 

 moisture from the tree. All wounds more 

 than an inch and a half wide should be 

 painted — you cannot afford to neglect it. 

 Old wounds not yet completely healed over 

 should be repainted. All body wounds, 

 as wintersplits, borer injuries and team 

 injuries, should be treated the same way. 



BURN THE PRUNINGS 



All prunings should be burned at once and 

 the ashes returned to the orchard soil. Do 

 not let them accumulate from year to year 

 in some corner. They may harbor pests. 



IS PRUNING UNNATURAL? 



After a man has done a conscientious job 

 of pruning, it is more than likely that his 

 neighbor, who does not prune and whose 

 fruit shows it, will lean over the fence and 

 remark, "Don't you know that pruning is 

 unnatural? Nature doesn't prune, why 

 should man ? We can't improve on Nature. 

 Her way is always best." 



If you care to retort, ask him if he is satis- . 

 fied with Nature's apples, pears, plums — the 

 sour, seedy and diminutive fruits of the 

 thickets. Tell him that Nature is after as 

 many seeds as she can get, to reproduce the 

 species. She is not concerned so much 

 about the size, juiciness and flavor of the 

 pulp surrounding these seeds. But man is; 

 and since he seeks for a product that is 

 unnatural in one sense, and since this can 

 be done only by unnatural methods, it will 



92. Winter injury to the trunk of a sweet cherry 

 tree. Cut off the rough and decayed portions to the 

 quick, scrape the wound and pai>nt it with white lead 



93. Don't let branches lie on one another. This 

 peach limb crossed another in a tree not suffici- 

 ently pruned. The abrasion weakens the part of the 

 limb beyond by cutting off part of the food supply 

 and offers a chance for diseases 



pay him to prune. How skilful some men 

 are at inventing excuses for their laziness! 



Buy a pair of pruning shears! You will 

 find that pruning is one of the most fascina- 

 ting operations in horticulture, because it 

 brings the man into the closest touch and 

 sympathy with his plants. Nothing can ex- 

 ceed the delight of finding plants plastic in 

 your hands, and fashioning them at will. 



COMMON-SENSE RULES 



The gist of my advice, then, is this: 

 Prune regularly, not spasmodically. 

 Study your trees — each one is a new 

 problem in pruning. 



Head-in young trees, thin out old trees. 

 Prune in early spring. 

 Prune close ; don't leave stubs. 

 Paint all large wounds. 



Who Can Afford to Garden 



Without a Roller? 



f< ARDENING without a roller is either a 

 ^-* dusty or else a muddy job, according 

 to the weather, so far as the paths are con- 

 cerned. Our paths are so smooth in wet 

 weather and so hard in dry weather that 

 our gardening is comparatively clean work. 

 We lay out our garden on paper in the winter 

 and decide just where the paths are to go. 

 As soon as the ground dries and has been 

 dug and raked, we roll our paths until they 

 are fairly hard — perhaps going over them 

 three or four times. This is done before the 

 soil has been made uneven by trampling. 

 After that, about all the care they need is 

 an occasional rolling, and weeding with a 

 push hoe. 



When a broad or double row of seed is 

 planted of sufficient length to pay for the 

 trouble, we run the roller over it instead of 

 pounding with the hoe or tramping. Ama- 

 teur gardeners seldom realize how important 

 is this making the soil firm after planting 

 seed in dry weather. It insures germina- 

 tion, and is of benefit to the young plant later 

 on. A "crust" can always be prevented by 

 running a rake lightly over the surface. 



A roller should be run over the lawn every 

 spring to smooth down the unevenness 

 caused by freezing and thawing. Its fre- 

 quent use on the lawn also discourages moles. 

 Tennis courts, driveways, and walks all are 

 benefited by the use of the roller. 



The water-ballast roller is a wonderful new 

 invention. The weight can be made anything 

 you please, within certain wide limits. It is 

 often convenient to reduce the weight. 



