Mexico weekly ledger., 1898-02-17

session Monday night. The roll was
called and a good attendance was
found to be present.
No business Of Importance was
transacted and Mr.. K. B. Wilkerson
read the following well-prepared
paper:
TREE PRUNING.
The subject allotted me is pruning,
which 1 will begin with the apple,
the king of all fruits. Take the tree
when received from the nursery and,
if set out in the fall, do not prune it till
spring; If set out in the spring, prune
at once. Prune about twc-thirds of
the last years. growth of, always leav-
ing the last bud out from the center
of the tree 80 rs to cause the growth
to spread outward. The last bud, pro-
vided 1t Is healthy, makes the growth
and, should the bud be on the inside,
it will cause the growth to extend in
and make your tree odd shaped.
Always cut out forks SO as to make
a main leader. Ifsome of the branches
should grow too fast for the rest of
the tree top them back to even them
up, SO as to give all an equal show.
In cutting limbs back always cut slant
ing upward from the inside Of the
tree and as close to a bud as you can
without injuring the bud-say me
eighth to one-half an inch. Now, il
you should cut slanting from the out
side of the tree towards the center of
the tree and the bud being on the
outside, as it should be, it will take
twice as long to heal over, and when
it does heal it will leave a black and
often a decayed spot. The further
you cut from the bud the longer it will
take it to grow over, as the healing
begins at the bud, and If it leaves q
dead spur trim close to the new
growth the following year. To give
you the full understanding I would
have to give it to you under the head
of the flow of sap.
TIME TIC PRUNE.
In regard to the time to prune, this
is a question that is governed by cir
~cumstances. If your trees are young
and you want growth we prefer prun-
ing early in the spring. The best sea-
son for pruning them ia in the spring,
because most of the vitality of the
tree is in or near the ground and when
the sap comes up in the spring 1t has
the same power on the pruned tree
which 1t would have had on the
unpruned tree; so If you were to cut
off one-half of the top you would get
twice the growth on the remaining
half. By such pruning it will make
much the finer tree. We have pruned
some young orchards several times
during the summer with fine results,
but a person will have to have exper-
fence in pruning to make a success of
pruning during the summer, as there
is danger of getting trees top heavy
or causing them to bleed. Be careful
how You prune the latter part of May
and June. You can prune early in
the spring with best uccess We
think best not to prune when trees
are hard frozen.
One of the greatest mistakes made
in pruning is most people will cut out
what they term water sprouts and leave
the forked limbs to grow from year to
year and, after a few crops of fruit,
complain of their rec splitting apart.
way to do this 10 to out out the
forks first and then, if it requires too
severe pruning to take the small limbs
and water sprouts out, they car be
taken off later on, as severe pruning |
at any one time ID a detriment to al
tree. / do not believe there would be
one tree split apart, where there are
twenty five now, if they we're taken
when first set out and pruned prop
erly. In regard to heading trees
l have seen trees headed six inches
from the ground and also six feet from
the ground to the first limb, which is on
the extreme in both cases. This must
be avoided. Nature knows no such
thing as extreme and she will not
endorse it. / would suggest from two
to three feet as the best height for
heading trees. If a young tree the.
second year from planting-if the head
is too low or too high-whipstock it,
that is, cut all of the limbs off and top
on an average of forty inches
from the ground. After whipstocking
always work for a main leader and
never allow side limbs to be as large
the central part of the tree. Neither
allow tw , limbs to contend for main
leaders. Cut out one of them. The
time to make a fine tree is from the
time it is set till it is four or FIVE years
old. After treesr reach the age of 1--WE
or six years prune very lightly. If
pruned as they should be up to that
age there will be very little work to
do afterward-only cutting out the
water sprouts. If your trees have been
neglected up to foul or six years Of
age take warning and prune very
If you do not understand
pruning you had better not touch your
trees at all.
/ believe nine-tenths of the trees
are damaged by severe pruning by
persons who do not understand prun-
ing and often they are ruined entirely.
/ have seen fine orchards almost
entirely ruined by being pruned by
the so-called professional tree-prun-
ers, who go over the country and take
orchards by contract. They seem to
think they will have to leave lots of
brush on the ground in order to make
the party owning the orchard think
they are doing q good job. Now this
class Of men are dangerous. About
of them will tell you they
have pruned many orchards In the
old country or in the Eastern part of
the United States. It is claimed that
trees make more money and finer fruit
pruned with high heads In the eastern
states. 1t has proved to be just the
here with us. I would say
more on this subject but time and
space forbid. L