THAT VICIOUS LONG STUB Hired men set to pruning trees are almost sure to leave stubs. They will argue that this is the best way. Go for your answer to trees thus pruned in previous years. They are plenty in any neighbourhood. The stub decays, its bark sloughs off at length, and the bark at the base can never hope to heal the wound until it swallows the stub entire, or the latter rots off at the base. In the
first case it is a delay of years. In the last, it means the invasion of rot into the heart of the tree. A long stub, therefore, always threatens the health of the tree, is a blot upon its beauty, and a monument to the laziness and ignorance or dishonesty of the man who pruned by this pernicious method.