Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-04-25

The extracts following are from an article
communicated, by Geo. Jaques, Esq, Worces-
ter, to the April number of Tilton's Journal of
Horticulture:
The importance Of the assertion may justify
the repetition here, that an immense amount of
pruning is done in this country every year at
improper seasons, without definite purpose and
in such bungling manner, as to result in a
positive injury, rather than benefit TO the sub
jects operated upon.
Were they properly attended to, from and af-
ter their first years growth, trees and shrubs
would rarely need any cutting that a common
pocket-knIfe is not strong enough to perform. 1t
arises almost altogether from long-continued
neglect that the greater part of the work in
question belongs, and seems likely to continue
to belong, to what may be STYLED the system of
hedoy pruning, in contradistinction from those
lighter and neater styles of operating which the
science of horticulture teaches us, as being all
that is really necessary where the cultivation has
not been marked by slovenly mismanagement,
For this light pruning, there is no season of
the year more favorable than the five or six
weeks preceding the middle of July. During
this period of fifteen or twenty DAYS on each
side Of the summer solstice, the sap flows SLUG
glishly, and is too thick to exude from wounds
however made, so that the healing process goes
rapidly forward. Where deciduous trees have
for a long time bad their own way, there is, all
things considered, no better period in which to
remove their supertiuous wood than the six
weeks preceding the middle of December. This
hedUy pruning, however, may be continued
throughout the winter, during mild weather
but always very cautiously when the wood is
frozen, and especially towards the spring, when
symptoms of bleeding begin to appear. I'm
queshonably, for either light or heavy operations
with either saw or knife, the twelve or fourteen
weeks preceding the middle of May should be-
US much as possible, avoided. During a few
weeks, especially just before their leaves begin
70 eApand, the sap of nearly all our trees is so
thlh ana watery that it flows out and bleeds
whenever there IS even tie slightest wound
| through the bark, and where this occurs, the
| healing is slow and imperfect at best, One ex-
eepton, 1t is true, must be made in favor OF trees
that are transplaned in the spring. In This case,
heading-in or thinning-out of the branches
more especially of deciduous kinds, is necessary
in order that the roots, enfeebed and mutlated
by the operation of HftiRg,-as the gardeners
call it,-may not be over-taXed before recovering
sufficient strength to sustain the growth above
ground.
Wherever wounds, exceeding about half an
inch in diameter, have been made by any opera.
tons in arboricuture, there should be al appli
cation Of some protection from the air, until the
exposed wood is overgrown by a new covering
of bark. Shelac, dissolved in alcohol, grating
wax, coal tar, or common paint, are all service.
able; the latter being the most convenient, the
neatest, and least offensive to the eye because il
can be easily made of the color of bark; and
this, for appearance at least, is worth something
to people of taste. Although there are cultiva-
TORS who doubt the utility of any such coating
Tor tree wounds, nevertheless il does not seem
Easy 70 explain why paint, for example, will not
as II does the sides of a wooden building. That
snc9 profession is actually afforded, is in ac-
So.siauce win several carefully conducted ex-
| perlments that can be well attested