6 
PRACTICAL PART 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRUNING SAW, AND PRUNING 
LADDER. 
The best instrument to prune small trees 
with is a carpenter’s turning saw , with coarse 
teeth, set wide for the purpose; having a large 
handle, with a hook to attach it to boughs or 
the rounds of a ladder, and admitting of the 
blade being taken in and out by screws, and 
replaced when broken. The saw is held by the 
round part of the handle while sawing a branch 
from below upward; and all branches should, if 
possible, be begun from below, to avoid tearing 
the bark and last layers of wood as the branch 
falls. A chopping instrument, such as a bill¬ 
hook, besides bruising the bark and splitting the 
wood, is apt to cut too close, or not close enough, 
or both; that is, to begin by cutting too close, 
and to finish by not cutting close enough. Or 
if it finishes close to the stem, great risk is run 
of injury to the bark or branches above that 
amputated. In the case of cutting too close, the 
parts from which the new healing growth is to 
proceed are injured ; in the case of not cutting 
close enough, a dead stump is left to be enclosed 
