Year: 1875




propose to give the public what,
not like the late Horace Greeley, I
know, but what are some of my
thoughts upon the subjects named in
the heading of this article. The chief
objects of pruning trees or shrubs are
two, beauty of the form and its pro-
ductiveness. 3


AS the beauty of n production de-
pends upon art and cultivated and
discriminating taste, I shall leave that
branch of the subject to those better
qualified than myself, and give only
my thoughts upon pruning for pro-
ductiveness. neaal sG.


Before laying his hand, armed with
knife or saw, upon tree, shrub, or any
other vegetable form, the product of
the orchard or garden, the pruner
should not only understand, but bear
in mind, that in every healthy tree, in
its natural state, there is perfect
equilibrium between the roots on the
one part and the branches and foliage
OH the other, and in the forces en-
plOyed and the functions which they
reciprocally perform; and he who
would dismember tree without re-
gard to this fact, should be restrained
from entering a nursery or an orchard.
Keeping this fact of equilibrium in
view, it will be evident that the re-
moval Of any limb from healthy
frao Incf rows II n ant1iI byi,1y, anH tho
roots must suffer a dimunition of their
powers in exact proportion to the
amount of foliage producing branches
which have, been removed, until by
the decay or suspended growth of the
roots and the continued growth OF the
branches, the equilibrium is restored.


Another important fact is, that in
living tree there is q constant circula-
ton of fluid, an upward and down.
ward flow. The upward flow, with
the exception of q small amount of
salts, is composed of water, while the
downward flow contains the carbon,
in the condition of carbonic acid, with
which the tree itself, both root and
branch is constructed. The carbonic
acid, which furnishes the matter for
the building up of the tree, is taken
from the atmospheric by the leaves,
which are laboratories in which the
matter is prepared for use in the for
nation of the structure. Every parti-
Gle of matter which enters into the
composition of a tree, whether it be
the roots or branches, or the fruit, has
passed through the leaves before taxi
ing its proper place in the form. All
the solid matter which enters into the
root and stem of an embryo plant, un-
til its leaves make their appearance
above the ground and gather nutri
ment from the Illuminated air, was
contained i'm the seed when it fell from
its parent stock or from the fruit in
which it was imbedded before its scpa-
ration from the parent tree. We thus
see the Importance Of the leaves OF
tree. And the roots are no less impor-
tant than the leaves. All the water
required to hold in fluid state the
solid matter which the leaves obtain
from the atmosphere is furnished by
the roots of the tree. If the roots are
unable to furnish the requisite supply
of water, the leaves harden and lose
their power to extract matter from the
atmosphere. =.


When the matter taken from the at
mosphere is employed in the forma-
tion of seed or fruit, there must neces-
arilu rncnlt dim annitinn of tin li9ne-
ous formation of the tree = of the
growth of the woody part. Every OBJ
server will have noticed that whenever
tree is unusually loaded with fruit,
the growth of wood during the year is
but slight. 1t is from this cause that
many fruit and seen-bearing trees only
produce fruit or seed biennially. The
entire force of the organization being
expended upon the formation of the
fruit or seed, there is no ligneous
growth during that year upon which
seed or fruit buds could be produced.