“With the ends of the fingers and the help of the thumb-nail, it is customary to pinch off from the too vigorous side the tips of the young branches while they are still tender. This operation we may call pinching. The sap that would have been used for the development of these branches is diverted from its course and carried toward the weak shoots, which it renews and stimulates. If the weak side itself needs pinching to arrest shoots that impair the desired symmetry, the operation is postponed as long as possible, while on the strong side it is carried out very early. The sap thus turned away from the vigorous side toward the ailing one has a whole season in which to restore the lost equilibrium. “Instead of limiting ourselves to pinching off the tips of the young shoots with our thumb-nail, we can suppress them altogether while they are still tender. This is done as early as possible on the strong side, only the indispensable shoots being left. If it is necessary on the weak side, it is not done until the latest possible moment. This operation we may style bud-nipping, since the word ‘bud,’ by which we designate the germ of the future branch when it is still enveloped in scales, applies also for the sake of convenience to the branch already developed but still young and tender. It is evident that nipping off the buds from the strong part tends, even more than pinching, to promote the desired growth of the weak part. The more branches we suppress entirely, the fewer will be left to share the sap needed by the branches we wish to strengthen. “What turns aside the sap from the part pruned, pinched, or nipped, toward the part left intact, is evidently the more or less complete suppression of foliage. It is primarily the leaves that by the continual evaporation of which their surface is the seat determine the ascent of the liquid drawn from the soil by the roots. The more numerous these leaves are at any one point, the more abundant the flow of sap to that point; the scarcer they are, the less the flow of sap. To diminish at any point the number of leaves by pinching, bud-nipping, or any other means, is therefore to diminish at the same point the flow of sap, which will go in some other direction, to the parts that have more leaves and hence a more rapid rate of evaporation to summon the sap. It is plain, then, that a middle course may be followed between the pinching that partly suppresses the foliage of a young branch and the bud-nipping that suppresses it entirely. This middle course consists in cutting a certain number of leaves from the too vigorous shoots; and they should be cut clean without tearing, by severing the stem and leaving its base undisturbed.