288 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
broken by overbearing or for other rea- 
sons. 
The opening up of a head of a tree 
which has been allowed to become crowd- 
ed, is very apt to be followed by sun- 
scalding on portions of limbs previously 
shaded. This is serious in itself, and 
suggests that the best pruning. is that 
which is avoided by careful attention to 
disbudding, the removal of limbs when 
they can be rubbed off or cut out with 
a pocket knife, and so training the head 
at the start that the removal of large 
limbs on bearing trees will be unneces- 
sary. Pruning should be directive rather 
than corrective. The grower should have 
a distinct ideal in his mind at the start 
of what form of top he desires, and that 
ideal should be based on the necessities 
of the climate and the experience of suc- 
cessful local orchardists, or on. experi- 
mental studies. One from ‘another local- 
ity, who purchases an orchard in a region 
where conditions are new, should not has- 
tily undertake the remodeling of the or- 
chard to conform to ideals of the region 
from which he came. When the removal 
of large limbs is unavoidable, or desir- 
able; then it should be done in the best 
manner and at a time when the risk of 
subsequent mischief will be the least. 
Many of our growers select the season 
when the trees are just starting into 
growth, continuing the work till June. I 
believe a more favorable time for the 
work would be January and February. 
I have seen trees pruned in April with 
no serious results. The cuts were made 
right, and scars one and one-half inches 
were almost half covered in a year. These 
trees were growing in good soil and were 
in a very vigorous condition. 
Again I have seen severe bleeding fol- 
low June pruning of the Ben Davis. These 
were bearing trees. Limbs in the same 
orchard cut earlier were not followed by 
this effect. In both cases, however, 
stumps were left from three-quarters inch 
to one and one-half inches long. This 
may have been partially responsible for 
the bad effects in the latter pruning. 
In another large orchard examined where 
the practice is to do the pruning in Jan- 
uary and February, and cut the limbs 
close to the’ parent branch, evil conse- 
quences following pruning are unknown, 
and wounds heal over nicely in a year or 
two. 
Pruning earlier in the season does not 
remove all possibility of injury, but ob- 
Fig. 1. 
A and B Indicate Improper Cuts. White lines show where cuts should have been made. 
C shows properly made cut which has healed over.—Purdue Station. 
