338 



PRUNING. 



British gardens and plantations. Tliese may be included under close-pruning, 

 shortening-in, fore-shortening, spurring-in, heading-in, lopping, snag- 

 lopping, lopping-in, stopping, pinching out, disbarking, disbudding, disleaf- 

 ing, slitting, bruising or tearing, root pruning, girdling, and felling. 



758. Close jorMnm^ consists in cutting off shoots close to the branch or stem 

 from whence they spring, leaving as small a section as possible in order that 

 it maybe speedily healed over. In performing the operation care should be 

 taken to make the wounded section no larger than the base of the shoot, in 

 order that it may be healed over as quickly as possible ; and at the same 

 time to make it no smaller, because this would leave latent buds which 

 would be liable to be developed, and thus occasion the operation to be per- 

 formed a second time. This mode of pruning is only adopted where the 

 object is to produce stems or trunks clear of branches or of any kind of pro- 

 tuberance, as in the case of standard trees in gardens, especially fruit-trees, 

 and in the case of forest-trees, grown for their timber. If the branch cut off 

 is imder an inch in diameter, the wound will generally heal over in two 

 seasons, and in this case the timber sustains no practical injury ; but if it is 

 larger, it will probably begin to decay in the centre, and thus occasion a 

 blemish in the timber. Mr. Cree's mode of pruning forest-trees grown with 

 a view to the production of straight timber, which appears to us to be 

 decidedly the best, is an application of this mode. Mr. Cree commences his 

 operations before the tree has been taken from the nursery, and continues 

 them till he has obtained a clear trunk, of such a height as he thinks the 

 kind of tree will produce of a useful timber size, in the climate and soil 

 where it is planted. He cuts off no branches whatever till the tree has 

 attained the height of from sixteen to twenty feet, with a stem of from fifteen 

 to eighteen inches in circumference at the surface of the ground ; but during 

 the growth of the tree to that height he shortens in the side branches when- 

 ever they extend farther than between three and four feet from the trunk. 

 In consequence of being thus shortened, these shoots do not, so long as they 

 are allowed to remain on the tree, attain a greater diameter at their depar- 

 ture from the trunk than about an inch. The tree having attained its six- 

 teenth, eighteenth, or twentieth year, its head forms a narrow cone, clothed 

 with branches from the ground to the summit. Its pruning is now com- 

 menced by taking off one tier of branches annually, commencing with the 

 lowest, cutting close to the stem, generally just before midsummer, that the 

 wound may be partially healed over the same season, and continuing to do 

 this annually till the stem has grown and been cleared to the required 

 height. While the process of clearing the stem is going on below, that of 

 shortening in the side branches is going on above, so as to preserve the 

 narrow conical shape, and prevent any of the branches which are to be cut 

 off from attainmg a greater diameter than an inch. The trunk being at last 

 cleared to the proper height, the head over the cleared part is left in the form 

 of a cone, and no longer touched with the averruncator. The head now, by 

 degrees, takes its natural form, and continues growing in that form till the 

 tree is felled. The detail of this mode of pruning will be found given by 

 Mr. Cree in the Gardeners Magazine for 1841 ; and a mode nearly similar is 

 described by Mr. Main in the volume of the same work for 1832. We have only 

 to repeat that we consider this system as by far the most efficient for pruning 

 forest trees, where the production of timber in a clean straight stem is the 

 object. The quantity of timber produced will not be so great as in the case of 



