HOW TREES PRUNE THEMSELVES

Shannon News, 8 June 1926, Page 3

HOW TREES PRUNE THEMSELVES

Perhaps, says Mabel H. Wharton, in 'American Forests,' you have seen an ancient pine tree with long.

straight boled trunk perfectly branch- [ less until high in the air the branches * shoot out and form a green crown. Did you ever stop to think how this came to be ? Why p.s it that this special pine is not like the forest of young pines at its feet, which are well branched from ground to apex? She goes on: — "This is just another example ot the wonderful way Mother Nature has of making things work together for the best good of all. She causes the forests to prune themselves, thus giving us long, straight, free trunks, containing good board lumber with which to build our mails, our houses, and our ships. "When this pine was young, as

young as the saplings at its feet, it, too, was many branched from root to tip, but growing around it, pressing closely together, were many other pines of the same age and height. As they grew larger and larger they be-

came crowded, and, needing more room, they chafed against each other. Their branches grew thickly, and th( upper branches shaded those beneath, until they could not get the light, and

so became yellow and sickly. Now a tree needs light and air as much as

it needs the moisture and plant food which it draws up -from the ground.

It breathes through its leaves as we breathe through our pores, and to do

this must have light and air in great abundance. When it finds that the sickly yellowed leaves are unable to digest the sap and get the most good from it, it does not care to bother with them any longer, but pumps the sap direct past these places, and on up to the topmost branches which are thrust up into the air and sunshine, and which drink the precious sap, and grow quickly upward and outward. '•The shadowed branches with theii useless burden of yellowed leaves stop growing from day to day, and become more and more shadowed. Finally they cease to grow at all, the moisure becomes parched within them, and they shrivel and die. » Now, when the branch dies, the tree has no more use 2or it, and wishes to get rid of it as quickly as possible. When it is putting on its layer of new wood each year,it does not put it on the dead branch, but works around it so that the branch seems to be set in a little hole, with the bark ruffling around it like a collar. Each year a new layer is added in this manner, and each layer squeezes in upon the branch more tightly until finally it squeezes so hard that .the dead branch falls off completely. 'Then the tree closes th* hole up gradually with bark, and soon the branch is entirely forgotten, and no trace of it remains. "So it was with this one ancient

pine. It was a sturdy tree, and it grew upward very rapidly, and soon overtopped its brother trees. Year after year the branches which grew beneath in the shade fell fom it, leaving its trunk tall and straight and unscarred, until it stood forth in all its majesty, with its green, tufted head in the cloudy Thus Nature has worked out her own wonderful method of pruning, and' relentlessly, year bv year, she goes through the forest doing good work that man, had he many, many lifetimes to live, could never find the time to do."