Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/114

92 by the stump of the branch is a source of danger to the tree. The larger this surface, the more difficult for the bark to close over it, and like injuries to the human body, unless the wound is thoroughly healed, it may cause the death of the patient. For this reason, if the cut is made perpendicularly to the tree, it presents less surface for the sun and rain to corrode, and for the fatal rot to take hold of, and finally eat out the heart of the tree. The cut should be made as cleanly as possible, and some of the wood scooped out in order to help nature cover it again with the bark. The whole should be covered with grafting wax or a mixture of cow-dung and clay.

If the olive is pruned while the sap is rising, or still worse while in flower, each branch lopped off is a mortal stab, a wound through which the tree will loose its life blood. The sap will run heavily for some days, especially if they are damp and rainy, no time being afforded nature to close the outlets made with the pruning knife.

The tree will have lost, to no purpose, that which might have nourished it, its vigor will be observed to diminish from that time forth, and little by little it will dry up and die.

Thus the very great importance of early pruning is inculcated, in order to give time for the closing of the cicatrices before the rising of the sap in March.

Experience shows that an olive, although it may not have been pruned in many years, and has not strength to put out new shoots, will flower and fructify every year. But in the majority of instances the flower does not set, or if the fruit forms it soon falls off. All this because the sap canals in the branches are obstructed, if not obliterated, and the tree cannot receive sufficient nourishment to maintain its produce.

On the other hand, if a tree is observed to make wood heavily, and to grow barren and give no berries, it is a sign that it has been over pruned. Such cases are rare, but when they occur the remedy is to make the tree fast for a while, neither cultivate, nor fertilize