Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 237 



realize that Nature prunes, we have but to walk 

 through the woods on a winter morning when 

 the ground is covered with the snow fall of the 

 night before. We shall not go far before we 

 notice dead twigs, branches and even limbs of 

 considerable size which have dropped from 

 the trees. These might have, and most likely 

 would have been passed by unnoticed had it 

 not been for the snow, which revealed the 

 smallest twig. By this we see that nature 

 prunes. We also see that she has purpose in 

 her work, and the effects are evident One 

 great purpose is the thinning of branches, or 

 even the destruction of the entire plant in many 

 instances. The effect of nature's pruning may 

 be seen on every hand. The tall tree that 

 stands in some deep hollow with its long 

 smooth trunk, without a limb for thirty or 

 forty feet, is one of the most beautiful speci- 

 mens of the finished product of the art of na- 

 ture's pruning. Should you doubt that this 

 tree has been pruned you have but to split its 

 trunk or open it with the saw, and there at its 

 very heart are to be found the knots made and 

 left by the limbs that covered this stem or 

 trunk years, or it may be, generations ago. 



Those limbs were necessary for the develop- 

 ment of the tree in the early years of its 



