I would like to do my part to reduce clutter in the archives by trimming out
unneeded previous posts in a thread when I make a reply.
  Since I've started using gmail, however, I can't figure out how to do
this.  I can hilight the portion that I want to remove, but when I go to
windows edit, the "cut" function is not active.
  I can't find any gmail function that looks promising.  Can some
knowledgeable gmail user tutor me a little?

Thanks,
Larry A.