I

cut part of a tree in the latter part of March and part in June, and the tree shows, and did for years, that the cuts made in March never turned black, while those made in June did. If I had a tree like the Perry Russet, or something that I wanted to check the growth of and turn into fruit, or possibly a young orchard of thrifty growth and not bearing, trimming in June so far retards the growth as to turn the fruit buds and bring on a crop; but inasmuch as it does it, it injures the vitality of the tree, of course, in checking up the growth. It is generally conceded that trimming when the leaves are on checks the growth of a tree. have done about as much heavy pruning as anybody, for I have had an orchard growing in the most miserable shape that an orchard ever grew in, limbs coming out right at the ground, and in order to do anything with that orchard, I have had to go into it and cut off those limbs, and keep running it up, and I have succeeded now, until I can plow right up to the tree, and I have cut off large limbs without any injury. I used to think we could not trim trees here as we did in New England, but if you will take the right time for it, you can do it as well here as there.

Mr. Plumb This matter of pruning on which we differ as widely as we do here is certainly worthy of further discussion. My observation and my theory is, that if you cut off a limb of a tree any time before the sap starts, and it remains without protection, that tree is sure to bleed when the sap starts. The first sap that starts in the tree is as thin as water, and it will push out of that wound, and the wound will become black. But if you wait until the leaves have started just a little, the sap is changed in its nature somewhat, and is changing every day, and the bleeding will be very much less. You cut off a limb in September or October, when the juices of the tree are thick, and the juices form their own natural cement, which fills up that wound, and it never will decay. Any wood chopper will tell you that. You go into the woods where you have cut the previous winter, and you will find every place you have cut decayed in some shape; but if a wood chopper went into the woods three or four years ago in the summer and cut off a limb, it is as sound as a bone.

Now I will cite you an example. About three miles from this

rotten.

city, Mr. Stone, the ticket agent, had an orchard, and it was limbed out-grand, noble arms, nicely bearing, and somebody told him the orchard would do better by trimming it up. He went in there about the first of March, and he and his man spent a week trimming that orchard with the saw and axe; cut off limbs as large as my arm, and trimmed them up. Two years afterwards, says he, "Plumb, my orchard is all going to the shades. It is all I want you to go and look at it." I was by there, and went and looked at it. Says I, "When did you trim it?" Says he, "I did it in March." "Says I, "Your orchard ought to go to the shades." I think that was six or seven years ago, and his orchard is just beginning to recover. A great many of the trees. have died. Now, if when he cut off those limbs he had put on some sort of a varnish that would have filled up and prevented the flow of sap, he would have saved nine-tenths of his difficulty. It was not the loss of the limbs, but making those large wounds and the flow of sap. If you want to cut in March, you ought to be sure on all large limbs to apply some sort of a varnish which will supply the place that nature supplies other parts of the year. Take equal parts of resin and linseed oil, and melt them together and apply hot with a brush. Any one with a little ingenuity can get up a little furnace, and any time within a week or two after you have done your sawing, before the sap starts, go over and varnish them with boiling hot wax, if you can get it on. Another way is to take gum shellac and dissolve it in alcohol and apply that cold, and it will answer the same purpose. Put it on thin. Unless you fill up the wounds, I advise you not to trim at this season of the year.

I want to say a word more about the pear business. From 1815 to 1855 we grafted almost all our pears upon apples in Jefferson county; hundreds and thousands of trees, not only standard apples and seedlings, but the native crabs. Very many of them bore. We had quite an abundance of pears. We found some varieties very successful. The Flemish Beauty never succeeded. A few of the slow growers succeeded fairly well, but in a few years they passed away. It is not to be recommended only as a temporary expedient, because the pear is not adapted to the

apple. There is no congeniality as a rule. There was just one variety, a very worthless little pear, that seemed to form just as perfect a union as any apples, but we never thought it worth while to propagate them in that way.

Mr. Shivley I have had some experience in old orchards, and I rise for information. A year ago last January I bought an old farm in the town of Brooklyn, and there was an old orchard on an elevated piece of ground, underlaid with limestone, some of the limestone pretty close to the top of the ground. The trees were put out in 1850. Some of the branches were alive, but the old part had become kind of scrubby, and had hardly grown for ten years. There was an old man living there, who was not considered a benefit to himself, Lor much of any to anybody else, but if you put the right man in the right place, he can be beneficial in some place, one way or another. I met him one day, and asked him if he knew anything about trimming apple trees. He said he did; he had done it east enough to learn his business. I made a bargain with him for ten dollars to trim that orchard. My son lived on the farm, and I went away, and did not pay any attention to it. In a few days I saw my son, and he said: "You had better come out and see that orchard, Thompson is spoiling it; he is cutting it all down, and he is doing it with an ax; and he is doing a butcher's job, cutting off the limbs with an ax; and the inside limbs, where he cannot reach with an ax, he is sawing off with a saw."

I went over and he had the job about done. I did not say a word, but paid him his ten dollars. I did not expect the orchard would be of any account. It had not borne an apple for ten years to amount to anything, and what it had borne was bitter and scabby and everything but good. There were 150 or 200 trees. It took me and my son three days as busy as we could be to haul the brush off, and the old man got wood enough to last him a year. The result was my son got all the apples he could use, and the nicest apples I ever ate, and the best fruit I ever ate, I think, came out of that orchard. There were not a great many apples, because there was no top, but what few limbs there were, all bore nice, thrifty apples, smooth and clean. Now I want

to know what course to pursue to keep that growing? It was cut some time in March. We worked three days hauling brush, and worked around there several days before the frost was out of the ground, so we could plow. It is looking thrifty and nice now and I want to know what course to pursue with it, and what is going to become of it?

Mr. Kellogg -I would say keep it in cultivation, withhold crops for three years, and then seed it down to clover.

Mr. Tuthill This question is as well settled among fruit growers east and west as any other question in horticulture, that we cannot prune as early west as we can east. Further south they may prune in the fall. I do not believe it is safe here to prune in the fall. I notice, in getting out nursery trees in the fall, if the trees are injured, as they sometimes are, by rubbing the bark off with the rope, they are generally dead in the spring. If you make any cut in the tree late in the fall, the tree is not in condition to go well through the winter. In the east there are no two opinions about the proper time for pruning. It is either done before the sap starts, in the spring, or in June, after the foliage is well up; but I have tried this pruning and cutting large trees, and I have never since I commenced pruning in the last of March had a tree bleed one particle. It does not even color the wood. It is the only time I ever pruned when I thought the thing was a perfect success. I used to put on wax where I pruned. Those trees would immediately bleed. The wax kept the pores open, and if the wax was not tight all around it would ooze through the wax. I have put paint on it, and tried to put shellac varnish on it, and I can see no cause to use either. If you prune and let the cut dry, it heals over. It is a well laid down principle in the books that pruning done in June will heal over rapidly, but the inner wood is liable to rot. The wood is sounder where it is cut early in the season. It will not heal over quite so rapidly as it will pruned in June, but it is sounder, and

never rots.

Mr. Jordan I hope that what our friend Tuthill has said will not apply to any section of the country but where he lives, because I think it will not do generally to adopt that plan. Ac

cording to my experience in the southern part of Minnesota and further north in this state than where Mr. Tuthill lives, it would be injurious to do that way, and there is only one plan, and that is, if you are going to cut trees, do it when they will not bleed. I believe Mr. Tuthill is right in his locality, but he would not be a few hundred miles further out. After the leaf is fully out is the best time to prune in a cold climate, and even then I prefer waxing or putting on a solution of varnish. I would prefer waxing no matter when I prune.

Mr. Olds I want to ask the gentleman who had the orchard pruned, if his trees did not throw out an abundance of watersprouts when the trees were cut?

Mr. Shivley No, sir. I have noticed but very few. The bark at the bottom seems to be level where a few years ago it seemed to be like shellbark hickory.

Mr. Olds My experience has been, when I would prune any time in the spring, the tree would fill up with watersprouts, and I would certainly have to do the work over again in two years.

Mr. Chipman-I would like to ask what benefit there is in pruning. My trees that have been pruned in three years have all died, and that has been the general rule all through our locality. I had a little orchard north of my house with about 150 trees, about fifteen years old. I got a man to prune it up, and in three years there was only one tree alive. I have now a nice orchard set about five years. They are urging me pretty strongly to have it pruned up. I am rather afraid if I have them pruned up they will go back on me. There are four trees set out thirty years ago that have never been pruned. Three of those trees have averaged one hundred bushels of apples apiece in the last three years. The other tree is a shy bearer. The rest of that orchard of 150 trees died in 1877, I think.

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Mr. Sloan-From my observation and experience in trimming apple trees, I do not believe anybody is justified in cutting a large limb off from an old apple tree in this country. I think, if it is done at any season of the year, the tree is in danger of dying. I do not believe there is ever any necessity for it. I do not think there are ever so many large limbs upon a tree but what if you