PRUNING AND TRAINING. 



405 



stem, or of the main branches, of ramifying 

 trees, such as the oak, chestnut, &c, whose 

 main limbs for certain purposes are as valuable 

 as the trunk itself, be our object. Nevertheless, 

 this is a business requiring caution and early 

 attention, for if lateral branches be allowed to 

 form near the bottom of the stem, and per- 

 mitted to continue, their amputation afterwards 

 has a serious effect not only on the constitution 

 of the tree, but on the quality of the timber also. 

 " When a large branch is cut off immediately 

 from the body or trunk of a large tree, the 

 usual sap which supplied it in its ascent from 

 the roots wil\ be stopped short, and for a time 

 will ooze out from the cut part. In a short 

 time, however, the sap, as it rises in those vessels 

 of the trunk which formerly supplied the branch 

 taken off, becomes stagnated, and causes rot in 

 that part, which can never be the case while the 

 branch remains to draw up and prepare the sap 

 in its leaves ; and this is the case in all instances 

 of large branches, as they are cut from large 

 trees. But in the case of a branch being thus 

 cut from a young sapling in a rapidly growing 

 state, the tree is not injured but improved, the 

 sap of the plant being in such a vigorous state 

 that rot cannot take place. Now the practical 

 deduction to be drawn from this is, that the 

 amputation of a large branch immediately from 

 the body of a large tree, instead of being favour- 

 able to its health and value as timber, is the 

 reverse. I say immediately from the body of 

 the tree, because the cutting off of a part of a 

 branch is by no means injurious to the health of 

 a tree; but, on the contrary, when part of a 

 large tree is cut off — i.e. foreshortened — the 

 flow of the sap to that part is checked, and the 

 body or trunk of the tree is in proportion en- 

 larged." 



Such are the views entertained by a very good 

 practical forester, Mr Brown of Arniston. Simi- 

 lar views have been entertained for many years, 

 and much discussion has 

 taken place on the sub- 

 ject, particularly in the 

 earlier volumes of " The 

 Gardeners' Magazine," and 

 since in the two principal 

 horticultural newspapers. 

 " The Forest Pruner," by 

 Ponty, and " Nicol's 

 Planter's Kalendar," edit- 

 ed by Mr Sang, are de- 

 serving of perusal in con- 

 nection with this matter. 

 The annexed woodcuts, 

 from the last of these 

 works, will explain the 

 effects of judicious and 

 injudicious pruning bet- 

 ter than a lengthened 

 letterpress description. 

 Fig. 159 represents a tree 

 of thirty years' growth, 

 which has been regularly 

 and properly pruned. 

 Fig. 160, a tree of the 

 pro p eh • , u . n e l> same age, which has been 

 tree. neglected as to pruning 



VOL. II. 



during its early growth, and has now been pruned 

 in a way too frequently practised — namely, by 



Fhr 160. 



Fig. 159. 



IMPROPERLY PRUNED TREE. 



sawing and lopping off the branches after they 

 have attained a large size. Fig. 1 61 shows the bad 

 consequences of neglecting 

 early pruning, in the case 

 of a plank cut from an ash 

 tree, which had been prun- 

 ed by lopping off the large 

 branches many years be- 

 fore it was felled. " The 

 cuts in this case," says the 

 very intelligent and vener- 

 able editor, " had been 

 made several inches from 

 the bole, and the branches 

 being very lai*ge, the 

 stumps left had become 

 rotten. The enlargement 

 of the trunk had not, how- 

 ever, been stopped, for the 

 new wood had covered 

 over all the haggled parts, 

 in some places to several 

 inches thick. Yet the effects 

 of the previous exposure to 

 the action of the weather, 

 by injudicious pruning, is 

 strikingly marked by the de- 

 cayed state of the parts con- 

 nected with the branches 

 which had been amputated." From this it will 

 clearly appear, that, if pruning is to be practised 

 on deciduous trees at all, it should be com- 

 menced while they are j T oung, and carried on 

 progressively ; and if so, no such blemishes will 

 be found in the timber when cut up. Yet it 

 does sometimes happen that young plantations 

 under twenty years' growth are to be pruned 

 (and we wish we could say that this was of more 

 frequent occurrence). In such cases, where the 

 ill-placed branches, or those intended to be 

 i 3 p 



EFFECTS OF BAD 

 PRUNING ON WOOD. 



