10 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GAEDENING. 



" What time the Vine her sere leaf lays aside, 



And cold north winds smite down the forest pride, 

 E'en then the gardener, keen amid his cheer, 

 Forecasts the business of the comii g year. 

 With Saturn's hook the widow'd Vine pursues, 

 And pruning forms her as himself may choose." 



Geovgic, ii., hlackmorcs Translation. 



Saturn's hook, by the way, seems to have been more 

 of a sickle than a pruning-knife. But it is not 

 only the leaves which fall, but sometimes the smaller 

 branches also. This is a common occurrence in the 

 Oak, and a still commoner occurrence in Thuyas 

 and other Conifers. The death and fall of the 

 branches may be seen on a large scale in Fir-forests, 

 where the trees are so crowded that the lateral 

 branches, deprived of their share of light, diy up 

 and die. Summer pruning or "pinching" is a 

 less severe operation, which frequently obviates the 

 necessity for more serious mutilation later on. Once 

 more to quote Virgil — 



" But while young life is nestling delicate 

 In callow leaflets, spare their tender state ; 

 And while the glad shoots frolic on the breeze, 

 Loose-rein'd on space, and prancing as they please. 

 Apply not yet the pruning falchion keen, 

 But nip them with your nails and thin between." 



Under ordinary circumstances, a great many more 

 buds are formed than can possibly be advantageously 

 brought to maturity. Those buds that have the 

 advantage as to position, exposm-e to light and 

 warmth, and so forth, will develop into shoots, the 

 others will form feeble growths or die outright. 

 Under some circumstances, this partiality of nature 

 suits the cultivator's purposes, as when he wishes to 

 secure long straight poles or "sticks" of timber, 

 and accordingly he plants thickly. In other cases 

 he uses his endeavours to prevent any such partiality, 

 and to secure even, uniform growth and proper 

 balance of parts, as in a fruit-tree ; and this he effects 

 by various methods of pruning and training. 



It will be obvious from what has been said that 

 the propriety of j)runing at all, and the methods 

 of accomplishing it, depend upon the requirements 

 of the cultivator, and next upon the conformation 

 and mode of growth of the plant. Pruning for 

 timber is one thing ; pruning for flowers, as in a 

 Eose, is another ; pruning for fruit is yet another 

 thing. Even in pruning for timber the methods 

 vary, according as bulk of timber or long unbranched 

 poles are required. Under ordinary circumstances 

 for timber-trees, practice and science alike prescribe 

 the less pruning the better. A well-grown tree 

 under favourable circumstances should need no 

 mutilation save what nature herself, with a far 

 more delicate appreciation of the necessities of the 

 case than we are likely to possess, gradually and 

 surely effects. But disproportionate, ill-placed, over- 



crowded, or diseased branches may require re- 

 moval ; if so, the sooner and more effectually the 

 better; or there may be some special requirement of 

 the cultivator, as in pollarding willows, which neces- 

 sitates pruning. In all cases the natural arrange- 

 ment of the buds and the dii-ection in which they 

 push should be borne in mind, and the cut should bo 

 made as cleanly as possible and as near as possible to 

 the main trunk or branch, in such a direction as to 

 expose the least amount of surface to air, moisture, 

 or insect depredators. Such wounds heal over by 

 the rolling inwards of masses of new wood, which 

 gradually converge and finally close the wound, but 

 always leave a layer of dead tissue in the wood, 

 which, of course, is an element of weakness and 

 possible decay. 



In pruning for flowers, as in the Rose, the first 

 thing to be considered is the position and habit of 

 growth of the buds; not only is it requisite to be 

 able to distinguish between leaf-buds and flower- 

 buds, but also to know how, where, and when they 

 are produced. Sometimes, as in most Roses, Ccanot/iKs, 

 Hibiscus SyriacHs, the Vine, some of the Clematises, 

 &c., the flowers are produced on the young, still 

 soft or herbaceous shoot of the year. The object 

 here is to secure the production of strong, healthy 

 shoots terminating in a flower-bud, not in a leaf- 

 bud, as an extension shoot would do. In such cases 

 pruning is generally performed in autumn, after the 

 leaves have fallen off, or in spring, before the leaves 

 expand. In the Vine, as in the Rose, the flowers are 

 formed at the end of the yoxmg shoot of the year 

 (that is, they are terminal, in botanical language, 

 although in process of growth they become turned 

 to one side). The buds are therefore formed with 

 great relative rapidity, and the matter out of which 

 they are constructed must be derived from the 

 branch from which they spring. The newly-formed 

 leaves are neither numerous enough nor physiologi- 

 cally active enough to aid much, if at all, in the 

 early stages of the growth of the flower in these 

 cases. It is last year's leaves which did the work of 

 accumulating, as those of this year will have to 

 provide for the necessities of the next. 



In the case of many Roses, practical men advise 

 "hard pruning," or what surgeons would call 

 " heroic surgery," and there is no doubt of its appro- 

 priateness in certain cases, but it must not be 

 adopted universally, or the Rosarian will flnd himself 

 minus the flowers ; nor can the same degree of hard 

 pruning be as safely extended to the Vine as to the 

 Rose, because in the latter case we want the flower 

 only, and the fruit and seed are usually matters 

 of quite secondary consideration ; moreover, the 

 Rosarian is often content to sacrifice quantity to 

 quality. In the case of the Vine, such wholesale 



