84 General Care of Trees 
consumption to nutrition and light supply. On the contrary, 
by anticipating this natural process through timely artificial 
pruning and trimming, still further advantage can be secured; 
for, by interfering early and limiting the competition, the 
vitality of the remaining branches is increased, so that 
pruning acts very much like soil improvement. 
The common practice in pruning is to cut out the dead 
wood; the proper practice is to prune in time so as to avoid 
as much as possible the making of dead wood. 
By judicious and systematic trimming (heading in), both 
the form and the health of the trees are improved, and in 
fruit trees even the fruit-bearing 
can be influenced, — but this 
is an art by itself. Such trim- 
ming should be done annually 
or biennially, when only small 
Fic 13 — Hedge shears for = changes at a time are made, the 
pruning 
branchlets cut are small, and 
the tree economy is only slightly disturbed. The branch 
system being kept shortened, the roots are much more likely 
to suffice in supplying the needed water even in drouthy 
seasons, while enough dormant buds will develop to fill out 
the crown as much as is needful. 
Thus by timely and systematic attention we can produce 
just such forms and conditions in a tree as we desire, instead 
of leaving it to the accident of natural development. 
Indeed, in such light-needing species as the Sycamore 
or Silver Maple, which are apt to thin out in the interior of 
their crown, the crown may be considerably improved and 
the foliage cover thickened by such cutting back of branches 
and consequent formation of new branchlets, which fill out 
the otherwise thin crown. Another advantage of cutting 
“or heading back” the annual shoots in rapid growing 
