640 
ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
frame, and allow them as much as ninety degrees of heat; when the 
shoots grow, they must he supported by tying them to sticks, or a 
temporary trellis : by which treatment they will advance upwards of 
ten feet high, and flower beautifully. When the stalks have died 
down, remove the pots from the hark bed to a dry part of the house, 
when they will he entirely free from any droppings of water, as they 
must have no moisture during the time they remain in a dormant 
state. They are readily propogated by dividing the roots, or by 
seeds which generally ripen very freely. 
Rusticus. 
ARBORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE XII.—ON PRUNING FOREST TREES. 
BV MR. JOHN HOWDEN. 
I observe, you have introduced some more observations on Pruning 
Forest Trees, &c. into your Register. One article p. 390, from the 
gren of G. I. T., and the other p. 406, by Mr. Blakie, of Holkliam. 
What a pity, that these gentlemen so desirous of doing good, should 
be the means of misleading ; they entertain such extraordinary ideas 
on vegetable physiology. They suppose the leaves of a tree to he its 
mouths, &c. whereby it inhales nourishment. Now I consider them 
quite the reverse, and I should not he very far wrong, if I said they 
were merely the excrements of the timber, or why does the tree dis¬ 
charge them annually, or biennially. The leaves of a tree appears 
to me no more mouths than the hair on my head, or the wool on a 
sheep’s hack ; they carry off insensible perspiration, and superabun¬ 
dant sap. Pray, do you think the hole or trunk of the weeping ash, 
lately planted at Chatsworth, has swelled in proportion to its im¬ 
mense quantity of mouths ? I know you will answer in the negative, 
that tree would have been ten times its present size, with a tenth of 
its mouths. I am as averse to sawing off large boughs from an old 
tree as any of your correspondents, I would have them cut off before 
they become large. The only way to improve an old mis-shapen 
tree, is to send it to the sawyers, and plant a handsome one in its 
place, and afterwards attend to pruning it properly, until it is brought 
into the form or shape intended, then touch it no more till \ r ou fell 
it for the timber-merchant. It is almost impossible to overprune any 
tree, providing you do not overprune it in any one year. Mr. Bla- 
