Constant cultivation at frequent intervals until midsummer should be the rule with young growing trees, with which this is even more important than with older trees. It is a good plan to plow the orchard in fall where possible, always turning the furrows toward the trees, leaving the dead furrows as drainage ditches between the rows. At Beechwood Farm we have always banked the trees with earth in the fall, using a shovel. This not only firms the soil about the tree, holding it straight and strong through the winter, but it affords good protection against rodents, especially mice. Where rabbits are prevalent it is well to place a fine mesh wire netting around the trees in addition to this. CHAPTER IV PRUNING THE TREES Pruning is not an entirely artificial operation as one might at first thought suppose. It is one of nature's most common processes. Nature accomplishes this result through the principle of competition, by starting many more trees on a given area than can possibly survive. In the same way there is a surplus of buds and branches on each individual tree. It is only by the crowding out and the perishing of many buds, branches, and trees that others are enabled to reach maturity and fulfill their purpose. This being too slow and too expensive a process for him, man accomplishes in a day with the knife and saw what nature is years in doing by crowding, shading, and competition. Proper pruning is really an improvement on nature's method. Neither is it true, as some claim, that pruning is a devitalizing process. On the contrary it is often stimulating and may actually increase the vigor of a weak or declining tree. All practical experience teaches us that pruning is a reasonable, necessary, and advantageous process. True, it is often overdone, and improperly done. As in many other things, certain fundamental principles underlie and should govern practice. When these are known and observed, pruning becomes a more simple matter. Heavy pruning during the dormant or winter season stimulates the growth and tends to increase the production of wood. In the same way pruning during the summer or growing season stimulates the growth and tends to induce fruitfulness, if the tree remains healthy. But this fruitfulness is apt to be at the expense of the vigor of the tree. On the other hand, the pruning of the roots of a tree tends to check the growth of wood, the same as poor feeding. As above noted heading back a tree when dormant tends to stimulate it to a more vigorous growth.