We finished on the 7th of November. The
trees were now to be top pruned. I told Johnson to cut every tree in the
big orchard back to a three-foot stub, unless there was very good reason
for leaving a few inches (never more than six), and I turned my back on
him and walked away as I said these cruel words. It seemed a shame to
cut these bushy, long-legged, handsome fellows back to dwarfish
insignificance and brutish ugliness, but it had to be done. I wanted
stocky, thrifty, low-headed business trees, and there was no other way
to get them. The trees in the lower, or ten-acre, orchard, were not
treated so severely. Their long legs were left, and their bushy tops
were only moderately curtailed. We would try both high and low heading.
On the night of November 11 the shredders came and set up their great
machine on the floor of the forage barn, ready to commence work the next
morning. There were ten men in the shredding gang. I furnished six more,
and Bill Jackson came with two others to change work with me; that is,
my men were to help him when the machine reached his farm.
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