Unwise Pruning Writing to corroborate the heterodox view that it
is a mistake to prune apple trees, a correspondent asks whether other fruits benefit by the neglect of attention. Pruning is of course a nice art. If it is not done very well it generally does more harm than good. How many amateurs, for example, more than decimated their crop of Lloyd George raspberries by wrong pruning! Black currants are the very opposite of apples. The older bush, not the younger, needs the ruthless pruning. Cordons and espaliers of any fruit, being artificial forms, must be carefully and scientifically pruned at the right season. The garden shrub that is most severely pruned by most gardeners is the rose ; and though this is doubtless necessary in beds of roses, it is a fact that few shrubs flower more profusely than roses left without any pruning. How full of flower and how comely in form is the thornless rose Zephyrine Drouhin when left to itself! We sacrifice a good deal by robbing trees and bushes of their indivi- duality, even if it runs to eccentricity.
W. BFACH THOMAS.
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