128 
ORCHARD TREES ! PRUNING. 
and Cyderist ” says, “ while your tree is young bring it into a handsome shape and order, and when 
it comes to bear fruit forbear pruning, unless in case of broken, or such boughs as grow cross, or 
gall and fret others.” Mortimer gives similar advice, and adds, “ thin most at the outmost branches, 
or where they are thickest.” Thomas Andrew Knight also lays great stress on judicious pruning, 
for he did not fail to observe the injury done in the Orchard from the wholesale lopping off of large 
branches. The scar does not grow over, it decays, and the tree becomes hollow and is broken off 
with the wind, or split down the middle, and the term of its natural life and vigour is materially 
shortened; and yet it is not difficult to remove even large branches without injury if it is carefully 
done. 
The late Mr. Chandos Wren Hoskyns, in a paper on “Pruning” in the volume of the 
Woolhope Club’s Transactions for 1867, has so well explained the true principles on which Pruning 
should be done, that a short abstract of his paper is here presented. 
The trunk of a tree is fed by its branches, just as a river is fed by its tributaries. It is not 
nourished by the sap taken up by the roots from the soil, until it has been acted upon by the 
atmosphere in the leaves ; and thus its growth is downwards from the foliage, and not upwards 
from the roots. Every branch of a tree has smaller branches of its own, and is in fact to them a 
tree. Now, supposing a branch to be condemned, instead of proceeding by capital punishment, 
(which admits of no repentance except to the infiictor), the humane process is this. Select a 
branchelet which happens to grow in the most favourable direction, and at the point where it 
springs, cut off the main branch obliquely in the direction of the growing branchlet, undercutting at 
first to prevent spaltering, and prune the wound as much as possible into symmetry with the 
direction of the new leader. In another year or two serve the new leader in the same way, 
and the process may be repeated if requisite. The result is this. The growth of the original 
condemned branch is entirely stopped without its being itself killed ’ and, as the trunk of the tree 
increases, its size gets less in proportion, and may generally in a few years be removed entirely 
without injury, or eye sore, close to the stem, that is to say when the proportionate size of the scar 
to the stem is such that it will heal perfectly in two or three summers. 
Trees grow in very different forms, some varieties are upright, some spreading, some 
straggling in growth and others altogether irregular. The careful pruner will take the peculiarities 
of each variety into consideration and leave in each as much bearing wood as possible, always 
remembering the great physiological truth, that in a healthy tree the extent of root surface must be 
balanced by the extent of foliage, to produce a well grown fruitful tree. Mr. Knight deplored the 
system of pruning in his day, which consisted in eliminating every branch in the middle of the tree 
until at length “ small tufts of branches were left at the extremities of long and large boughs.” This 
is not altogether the fault of the pruner, for in the growth of spreading mop-headed trees the middle 
of the tree is thrown completely in shade, and the smaller boughs, if not removed, could never bear 
healthy fruit. It is more commonly the result of leaving the trees too crowded in the Orchards. 
Cutting off main branches should only be required in young trees, and when this is properly 
done, no leading branch should afterwards be touched, and the trees should be left to live out the 
natural term of their lives and fruitfulness. 
