790 
PRUNING FOREST TIMBER. 
ARBORICULTURE. 
ARTICLE XIII. 
ON PRUNING FOREST TIMBER.—Bv a Mountaineer. 
“ If a garden is neglected for some years, a portion of diligence and 
attention may soon bring it into good condition again : but tliis is 
not the case with a neglected forest; if once a plantation suffers from 
neglect, it is next to impossible to recover it. No branch of Rural 
affairs, without exception, has made less progress, or is upon the 
whole less understood” than the 'pruning of trees. Particular re¬ 
gard should be paid, previous to pruning, to the health and vigour, 
and not to the size of the trees. A vigorous tree full of sap of twenty 
years of age, may be pruned with more safety, than a stunted one 
fifteen years of age, because the parts cut over would heal sooner in 
the former from its being full of sap, than in the latter which was 
deficient in sap. Indeed the whole art of pruning consists in thin¬ 
ning out the large and strong branches every year moderately , ac¬ 
cording to the size, health, and vigour of the tree, to have the tree 
well poised with branches, resembling a larch, as circumstances will 
allow, and leaving those on the tree which will assist the general cir¬ 
culation of the sap. 
The safe and proper time for pruning all kinds of wood is the 
summer months, when the sap having ascended, is stationary in the 
tree, and before it begins to descend. It is true, all Authors agree 
that to prune a tree while the sap is in motion either upwards or 
downwards, is the ready way to cause it to bleed excessively. But 
there are Authors and practical Foresters, who continue to hold the 
heretical opinion, that winter is safe, or even a safer period for pru¬ 
ning than summer. During the summer, there always exudes upon 
the face of the wound, a thin gummy fluid, r which, in a few days, 
seals it up, and skins it over. I have never observed, that the plant 
has a tendency to renew the branches removed at this season; but 
when the same cut is inflicted in winter, the plant is apt to suffer 
from the action of the frost upon the raw wound; and moreover, 
when the spring months arrive, the forester will observe numerous 
new shoots pushed out from the scar of that which has been removed, 
and is thus apprized that his task is but imperfectly performed. As 
to the necessity of pruning in general, it is proved by a single glance 
at the short stems and overgrown heads of the greater part of the 
Oaks , found in natural woods, compared with the close upright 
