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setting out young trees — that is, the pruning of the tree in the nursery pre- 

 paratory to digging. Some nurserymen trim up from the bottom a foot or 

 two, or something of that kind, and if we cut off our trees up to the height 

 of twelve or fourteen inches before setting out, then the question is, should 

 those new limbs be cut so that those buds will start properly. I think that 

 this is a very important question; sometimes they start and make a good 

 growth right away and other times they don't seem to — if you get a tree 

 two or three feet high the buds will all start to the upper part of the tree, 

 but cutting it down to twelve or fourteen inches sometimes the buds don't 

 start. 



PRUNING NURSERY STOCK. 



Dr. Kimball: I think that is owing to the nurserymen having treated 

 their trees improperly when they are young in the nursery; they break off 

 too quick the buds as they are starting, in order to produce a trunk. I 

 think the peculiarities of tree life are that as they come out of the ground, 

 they put out buds and leaves and will produce snoots in almost any emer- 

 gency unless they have been rubbed off. 



Mr. Thompson, of Fresno: In my county they adopt the plan of cutting 

 our trees back to two feet in height. Along in June when our trees get 

 about eighteen inches high, I go along and cut the tops off of the entire 

 nursery from one end to the other, and that stops the extra growth ; and my 

 early trees dug this year are equivalent to two years old because of the way 

 they have grown as they come out of the nursery. 



Mr. Gray: If you were going to plant a tree a foot in the ground, how 

 would you treat it in the nursery? 



Mr. Thomas: I would trim off everything above ten inches, and keep 

 the stock in from ten inches down, and when it gets up to about fourteen 

 inches pinch your terminal bud off, and you can have your lateral limbs 

 as you wish to have them. If you let that center growth run up eight or 

 ten feet in height your lower lateral limbs are poor, and you won't have 

 any lower lateral limbs on it until it is about three feet high. The thing is 

 to pinch back and form the lateral limbs at the point you want to have 

 them. 



Mr. Kells: Do I understand, Mr. Thomas, that by forming the laterals 

 on the stock you will gain a fruit crop sooner than by pruning the trees ? 



Mr. Thomas: I think I would. I think I could gain a year on Mr. 

 Smith's method in three years by starting them right in the nursery. 



Mr. Smith: Mr. Thomas' method amounts to about the same as a method 

 I described here last night, with this exception, and that is, in taking the 

 trees from the nursery, picking, and shaping them while setting out. 

 Those laterals he speaks of are likely to get broken and bruised, and the 

 results are not quite so good; with that exception, as he says, he gains a 

 year's growth by going in and pinching it or topping the young trees and 

 forcing those laterals out at about the very height a person wants, topping 

 them a foot or eighteen inches as the case might be, but my experience 

 will be to let the trees grow in the nursery a year old without any lateral 

 limbs and let the bud develop as plump and as healthy as possible, and in 

 handling the trees from the nursery and setting them out, do it as care- 

 fully as possible, not cutting off' buds below where you want to cut off the 

 tree, and in handling the tree handle it above where you want to cut it off 

 and leave the buds below all undisturbed. Then when the tree is set out 

 and it starts to grow in the spring, the buds near the top are all ready to 

 start, and any below that pinch off, and that leaves a bunch of leaves on 

 the top of the tree to protect it when the tree has no limbs to protect itself 



