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heart-wood was last to ripen. Certain late growing, tender sorts, and the latest, 

 rankest growing trees of any particular sort are most subject to it, and when of 

 but one or two season's growth — root-grafts are also more subject to it than seed- 

 lings, and are also more incurable. Thus we see the great difiiculty in rearing 

 fruit trees here; to winter them successfiillj' during the first few years of their 

 growth until the wood becomes hard and firm — the trees acclimated and esta- 

 blished — after which there is, comparatively speaking, but little difiiculty. 



The outward manifestations of this injury are — a feeble growth at the extrem- 

 ities, with a strong inclination to throw up new shoots from below, often from 

 near the base of the tree — an unnatural enlargement of the one or two year old 

 wood, the bark turning dark, especially around wounds as in trimming, which 

 canker and turn black. The oozing out of the sap, through such wounds, is 

 doubtless often caused by this injury. If the tree be cut open the heart-wood 

 •will be found more or less discolored, with more or less inclination to decay. 

 Where the injury is severe it extends quite through to the outside, and kills 

 patches of the bark, especially around forks or wounds made in trimming or 

 grafting. If not too badly injured, the decomposition and decay of the wood 

 progressed too far, the tree may entirely recover, especially when of hardy kinds, 

 and the following summer and winter are favorable. When it is severe, it is best 

 to let the sprouts grow from near the ground for two seasons, when the old 

 stump and all the sprouts, save the best one, should be cut away. Thorough 

 cultivation, and washing the old bodies with soft soap, will soon show whether 

 the tree prefers them or the new shoots, which on young trees are often the best. 

 This variety of injury is greatly aggravated by severe or untimely pruning — the 

 diseased sap and tissues being thei'eby exposed to all the pernicious effects of the 

 sun and wind, and is greatly relieved by not pruning at all — that is to say, a lot 

 of severely pruned trees will suffer much worse than a lot of trees pruned slightly, 

 or not at ail — it matters not whether the pruning be done the spring before or 

 after the winter which occasions the mischief. This fact bi'ings to light another 

 most fruitful evil in our ^^ management''^ — excessive pruning — the most laborious 

 and profitless, and ruinous of all our operations. Wei'e it possible to avoid them 

 we would never, in this climate, have a single scar or mark of a knife on the 

 bodies of our trees, ei:'-pecia]ly during the first few seasons, until the wood gets 

 hard and firm, when they heal over with much a'l'eater ease — with much less 

 danger of cankering and decay. 



6. Sun-blight. — A destruction of the bark on the south or south-west side of 

 the bodies of trees in the winter, by exposure to the sun's rays while frozen — 

 thus alternately freezing by night and thawing out by day. Most trees with tall, 

 smooth, naked trunks, are subject to this in clear cold winters, but the Heart or 

 Bigarreau cherries are most liablc'to it. Full, warm, southern exposures, as the 



