The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-07-29
Manner of Pruning Apple
Trees.

we would recommend from the tenth to
the twentieth. Last year we pruned
some trees the Goth of July and the
wounds have shown perfect health from
that day till now, the exposed wood
being the color of dry pine board. Some
barren trees we also pIuned about that
time and one of the effects was to cause
them to bear fruit this year. About the
twentieth of July, all the bark may be
stripped from an apple tree and new
bark will Immediately form, but the
growth of such trees will be suspended
till the following year, and they will form
fruit buds and bear to excess. Stripping
the bark only from north side of
trees insures their bearing, and no other
visible effects follow.
Very often hitherto we have described
the true method of pruning trees, but
most persons must be told thing many
times before crediting and understanding
it. Besides some very clever people are
so suspicious of any new thing and fearful
of being humbugged that they never take
up with anything till certain leading
men in whom they confde adopt and rec
ommend it. Old ways of doing things
are held to by most men with stubborn
tenacity, and new ways are stubbornly
resisted. Notwithstanding these several
difficulties in the way, our novel recomen-
dations as to the time for pruning, manner
and kinds of limbs to be detached, with
the objects to be gained by pruning. are
being quite generally adopted not only In
Grant County, but by leading orchard
men in the Northwest.
nno \ &hn of
adoption of our practice has been failure
of the people to understand it. especially
as to the kind of limbs having NAL formed
crotches, and which we have noted as the
chief cause of what is well known as
south-s1de blight or winter killing. And
from the fact that we have recommended
the cutting away of such limbs by
digging them out, SO to speak, and some
kinds of trees bearing SO many as third
such limbs. our practice has been assailed
as a most unmerciful cutting away of
wood. Whereas, upon an average our
practice does not require cutting away
even so much wood as the old professional
trimmers who used to follow.the business.
Besides when tree is once pruned &C.
cording to our method, it rarely ever
after requires any pruning, but it very
soon afterwards becomes perfectly healthy
and thereafter hardly water sprout or
useless branch is found upon it. By our
method the disease itself is removed, with
the cause thereof, and consequently,
mal-formations, water-sprouts, south-side
blights and other excuses and shifts of
natuae to mend bad body are thereafter
done with.
In the first place we have found it
highly important that very young trees
be so pruned as to balance them which
may be done by cutting away such lower
limbs as appear to throw too much weight
of top on one side. The side having excess
of limbs and foliage, oyerdraws sap and
Virtuo fnom the roots on that side; and
consequently there is an overgrowth of
roots in that direction. For the roots of
o tree are found to correspond with tops
In quantity and extent. One writer affirms
that by cutting the roots about tree
equi- distant from the body will bring the
tops to balauce, and we supposed that
balancing the top would produce balance
ofthe roots. Some experienced orchardists
recommend thinning out of the small
limbs growing from the body, but we can
hardly believe the like is ever necessary.
When such limbs are healthy, however
dense the top, we believe they should re-
main, because tree really needs all its
healthy foliage.
We use pruning knife, small saw and
some chisels for cutting off limbs. Nal
formed limbs should be either torn away
from their roots or lifted out with a
gouge chisel. Now why thus and so is,
that in their apex or partition within you
will always find rotten and poisonous
mass of dead bark saturated with liquid
which is constantly being absorbed by
the vessels of the tree and emptied
into the circulation-causing disease and
death. Such poisonous matter can only
be removed by tearing or gouging out
these false limbs, one or mere such being
found upon nearly every tree in every
orchard The positive deadly effects
however, of such NAL formation only fol-
low when late'f growth occurs, one fall
in three or four, during which the wood
of such crotches fails to mature and the
parts are killed by the next ensuing cold,
and but slight freeze is sufficient to
perfect the damage. In the Northwest
it is the fall seasons favorable to a very
late growth and consequent immaturity
Of wood from such cause always effects
part of a tree already diseased-just as
the cold or other condition begetting i'm
purity in the animal is sure to settle in q
part already affected with disease.
The venom distributed through the
living parts from these mal-formed
crotches acts upon the tree precisely as
impurity in the blood acts upon the ami
NAL. Tenderest organs become diseased
and the tree or animal takes to stimulating
or oyereating, thereby making matters
worse. Upon the animal, boils and other
Ventilations are produced, and upon tree.
so affected water sprouts are thrown out
Or scrofulous sores on the south or warn
tide.