150 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
It is desirable always to plant all kinds 
of trees only when the ground is in good 
moist condition. 
PRUNING. 
The pruning of fruit trees at time of 
planting, or before, is a matter that is 
given entirely too little attention. A very 
large percentage of trees are set out 
exactly as received from the nursery, 
whether pruned at all or not, in an en¬ 
deavor to save as much of the top as 
possible. This oftentimes results in los¬ 
ing a large percentage of trees, for the 
root system of the tree has been deranged 
while the top is left as it originally was, 
with the result that the tree has to draw 
upon the sap stored up within itself to 
support the top and, if evergreens, all 
the foliage, while the roots are getting 
started. This heavy drain upon the vital¬ 
ity of the tree not infrequently causes it 
to die. Nearly all fruit trees should be 
severely pruned when planted. They will 
start out better, make better and quicker 
growth, and actually form good heads 
sooner than when planted with all their 
tops left on, besides materially reducing 
the percentage of loss in planting. Fruit 
trees should nearly always be cut back 
to a straight stem of about twenty to 
thirty inches. This gives the point at 
which the top will form, thus making a 
low branched tree, giving a larger fruit¬ 
ing surface than would be possible were 
the top started four or five feet or higher. 
It also allows of the fruit being picked 
with greater ease and less expense than 
from high-topped trees, because a good 
portion of the fruit can be picked with¬ 
out the use of a ladder. 
The roots should also be pruned to 
some extent, but I do not believe what 
is known as the Stringfellow method of 
pruning off all the roots is good practice; 
in fact, it has not proven so in my own 
planting of many thousands of trees an¬ 
nually, except in some instances where 
trees are very small and the top is also 
cut to within a very few inches of the 
ground. 
In pruning citrus trees, it is advisable 
to cut out the fibrous roots almost en¬ 
tirely, the belief of many planters to the 
contrary notwithstanding. These fibrous 
roots are but feeders and are an annual 
growth, and when a tree is transplanted 
with these fibrous roots left on it, they 
will simply rot off before new rootlets 
will start, thus hindering the starting of 
new feeders. If anyone doubts this as¬ 
sertion, let him heel in a few orange trees 
during the early winter, and then examine 
them during the late winter. He will 
find the fibrous rootlets rotted off, and 
new rootlets starting. In making the 
test, try a few with fibrous rootlets cut 
out and see if he does not find that they 
have started new feeders much sooner than 
those with the fibrous roots left on them. 
A pretty good plan, when ordering 
trees from a nurseryman, is to instruct 
him to have the trees pruned ready for 
plarfting. He will seldom make any 
charge for this, and the plan has several 
advantages. In the first place the trees 
will be properly pruned; with many plant¬ 
ers it takes considerable nerve to prune 
as hard as trees should be pruned. 
In the second place, this will save you 
the trouble and expense, and will save 
considerable useless weight and, con¬ 
sequently, transportation charges. And 
in the third place, evergreen trees will be 
the better for being pruned and defoliated 
immediately when dug. This stops, to a 
large extent, the evaporation of sap, al- 
