I Will suppose, for example, you have a dozen evergreens, two of a kind. Some you wish to grow in form of pinnacles and you select the Norway spruce, because it is a strong-growing variety, and let the leader run up as it chooses, only heading in the side limbs to thicken it up and do away with its shaggy appearance. If you wanted an oblate dwarf, say at a scale of six feet wide to twelve inches high in the center, you would take the weak-growing Balsam at a foot high, cut out its leader and, year after year, do likewise. Let it rise only about two inches in the year and not head in the side limbs, and you would have what you wished.

So, if you wanted an Arbor vitae dwarfed, with round head at six feet high, or an Austrian, or other pine, hemispherical at eight feet, you would act accordingly by cutting out the top leader at the height you want, and the center leader to the side limbs, etc., according to judgment. There is a continued effort of the evergreens to make height and, if a top leader of a Balsam or Norway, for example is broken off this year, one of the side top limbs will rise up next year and take the lead. In short, whatever you fancy can be accomplished by taking the tree in early time; for, whenever you shorten a leader or side limb, the sap is immediately diverted into buds that grow and multiply limbs and foliage. You can make your tree a hemisphere, semi-ovoid, semi-oblate-spheroid, paraboloid, high or low cone, conoid, semi-oblate-conoid or a pinnacle.

The Balsam can be made a pinnacle, but the danger is that its lower limbs will thin out their foliage and die, and then the tree, as an ornament, is ended.

All ornamental pruning of an evergreen top is done by a judicious shortening in process, and should always, if possible, be done in early spring before the sap has started, but should not be commenced on an evergreen the year it is transplanted, nor until it is thoroughly established. In heading in a limb, always cut just above, say one-third of an inch above a bud, so that the bud may develop into a new limb (this rule does not apply to the pines however).

Another method to insure regularity: - Measure out from the bottom of the tree equal distances and drive a peg. Make a circle through the pegs - the tree as a center. From the pegs extend lines to the top of the tree and head in, in a circle, to these lines as a guide, either with the pruning shears or a long, sharp butcher's knife, with which you can cut off, by the eye, a limb at every stroke. The Arbor vitae can have a rounded head, a paraboloid, and being furnished with numerous incipient buds will thicken up exceedingly by constant spring pruning. As I have remarked, early spring, before the sap flows, is the best time; and it is said to be fatal to a red cedar hedge to prune in midsummer.

The red cedar is capable of being made a very beautiful ornament. Being at an amateur neighbor's of mine several years ago, I observed a red cedar about four feet high, a straggling one-sided growth with three lobes of foliage two feet from the ground, with as large vacancies between - a very ungainly but thrifty looking tree. I remarked to my friend as we passed it, that that tree was capable of being made a beauty. "How so?" said he. "By heading in," said I. "How is that?" I told him to measure at the lowest limbs, an equal distance from the tree and around, and cut off all the leading limbs with his knife at that distance, and do the same all the way, tapering to the top, making the outlines of the tree cone-shaped, and keep doing so whenever he saw a limb shoot over the line. He offered me a knife * and I showed him. He followed instructions whenever he passed the tree and saw a limb shooting out over the mark. In three years afterward, the tree had thickened up into a perfect cone. Even the open places had foliage, so close that a sparrow could not get in its branches, and my friend was offered $100 for the tree if he would move it over to a neighbor's grounds.

The pines are more difficult to treat. I know a case, however, where a white pine was growing so fast as to require its removal or curtailment, where the owner cut off the leader, at nine feet from the ground where the tree was two and one-half inches in diameter, and each leading limb at the junction of its branches, leaving only the side branches of the limbs, and in one year afterward it was a comely looking tree, an ornament, but so contracted as to make no further trouble. I have no doubt that any of the other pines can be treated in like manner with success.

It is to be remarked that of all the distaff-headed growing evergreens, the pruning must be above the bud, for, if below, no shoot will start where there is no bud, as is the case in deciduous trees, but, wherever there is a bud, there will be a shoot, and the more the sap is checked by heading back other portions of the tree, the longer and stronger the shoot will grow.

By the term leader, I mean the main upright shoot, stem or body of a tree, not the side shoots or branches; and, when applied to the branch of a body or stem of a tree, the leading or main branch, not side shoots from a branch.

From what has been above written, I think it must appear patent that "cutting back" a main leader will cripple or dwarf a tap root, and strengthen the side roots, and "heading in" a branch leader will proportionately multiply and strengthen the side roots, so that the tree, whether fruit or ornamental, by this dwarfing process, becomes invigorated, and trees on the decline, by thorough and judicious "cutting back," may be forced by their tenacity of life to throw out new side roots and thus become healthy.

Pruning Evergreens #1

It doesn't seem to be generally known, but nevertheless it is true, that the forest tree is capable of being made a thick, shady, vigorous tree on the same principles of shortening in that have already been laid down. The Sugar maple, Butternut, Black birch, and all sap-wasting trees should be shortened in before they shed their foliage in the fall, that the wood may dry and season over the amputated end to prevent a bleeding flow of sap. All other trees may be shortened in early in spring or late in autumn. Trees transplanted from the forest should have good roots - all broken or injured roots cut off from the under side with a sharp knife, and well set in late autumn or early spring, the top first cut off twelve or fourteen feet from the roots, with a single limb left on to attract up the sap; this should be cut off the next year, so that the tree may head out evenly. As the top begins to grow, all limbs growing faster than others, should be headed in to make a uniform head. The principles referred to above in pruning the Bed cedar may be applied in pruning a park of deciduous trees, giving each tree, however, its natural shape. The head of a tree once well shortened, it will continue to grow on evenly and handsomely in future, with a tight, thick, shady top.

Whenever a limb is headed in, two, three or more shoots immediately put out near the excision, and the •tree takes the habit of continually thickening up its head and enlarging its stem and limbs. The American larch or tamarack is said to become a weeping tree by heading in its top. When a tree has attained a considerable height, two men with a double ladder to be moved around the tree, are required, and the pruner should have a long, sharp, heavy knife, to sever the ends of the limbs.- 7 he Western Rural.