VIII 



PRUNING 



SOUND knowledge of a plant's manner of growth 

 should precede any attempt to direct that growth 

 by pruning or otherwise training it, juet as sound knowl- 

 edge of anatomy must precede the successful surgeon's 

 work on the human subject. The intelligent direction 

 of the tiny plant's development which such knowledge 

 makes possible, will make pruning unnecessary when 

 the esedling has matured into a tree — and this is a con- 

 summation devoutly to be wished. 



We are accustomed to think and speak of buds as 

 embryonic flowers, but they are a great deal more than 

 that. There are flower buds, leaf buds, and mixed 

 buds — that is, flower-and-leaf buds — and every branch 

 and limb of the sturdiest tree, and even the tree itself, 

 has had its beginning in a bud. They are the source 

 of all growth after a plant is out of the seed. Indeed 

 the little plant springs from the seed, broadly speaking, 

 by means of its terminal bud. Each year its growth 

 proceeds upward by the formation, during the summer, 

 of another terminal bud which crowns the season's 

 work, and opens into leaves, possibly flowers, and a 

 further growth of stem the succeeding year. 



28 



