198 SUBURBAN GARDENS 
destroy the plant, more especially if it hap- 
pens to be a tree. But in spite of all that has 
been said and written with regard to the ampu- 
tation of branches from trees, practically every 
community shows scores of freshly made im- 
proper cuts. Why it is that most people seem 
unable to bring themselves to cut through a 
limb at its very base, clean down at the trunk 
from which it springs I cannot imagine, but for 
one tree properly pruned by such close cutting 
there are fifty, perhaps twice that number, 
showing unhealed stumps all the way from half 
an inch to four or five inches long. 
There is just one right way to cut a branch, 
large or small, from another branch or trunk; 
that is, to lay the saw which is to do the cut- 
ting, flat against the trunk, and thus make a cut 
so close that practically all traces of the 
branch removed are smoothed away. Such a 
wound will be larger around than we are ac- 
customed to see, to be sure, but its diameter 
is of no real consequence. The point is to 
make its surface so flat and smooth and easily 
covered that the bark — or skin — will quickly 
grow over it; and this it will often do in an in- 
credibly short time, leaving sometimes a hardly 
perceptible scar. 
