A few intelligent nurserymen have learned this very important lesson, and have applied it in the preparation of their trees, for the exposure incident to their removal from the nursery to the orchard. A very few practice it systematically; I knew one, (alas, for the lamented Beeler, of Indiana), who acted upon the suggestion made to him by observations and experiments in vegetable physiology. He left the side branches, though subordinated by shortening when necessary, in order to give stocky stems to his trees, and then removed them with the knife during the summer before they were to be sold and planted, instead of waiting until they were dug and sent to the packing house in the fall or spring. The result was, that while his stems were stout and stocky, they were also smooth, the wounds neatly healed over with new bark, instead of being open from the fresh cuts and liable to crack or bleed, as they would have done had this pruning been deferred until after digging, either in the fall or spring. This may be considered a small matter, but it is an illustration of the principle involved in selecting the period for pruning. For the removal of small limbs from young trees, hardly any time can come amiss--better to do it out of season than to neglect it, and it is a good rule to have a sharp pruning knife always at hand when passing through our young orchards. There is but one time when pruning is absolutely interdicted, and that is when the wood is frozen. When so circumstanced, it should never be cut nor disturbed in any manner--not even to gratify your best friend, by helping him to a few grafts from your proved tree of some coveted variety. Let him wait for a thaw, or go away without the grafts, rather than commit such an outrage upon your tree: as to approach it with a knife when frozen. While considering the question of the proper season for pruning, there is one axiom of great importance which should be firmly impressed upon the mind of the orchardist. Much will depend upon which of the two leading objects, above indicated, he may have in view--vigor of growth and symmetry of form, or simply fruitfulness, as the result of his labors in pruning his trees. Pruning at one season will induce the former result, at a different period of the year the same work will conduce to the latter; hence the postulate _Prune in winter for wood; in summer for fruit_. CHAPTER XI. THINNING.