MIDSUxMMER PAPERS. 79 



oped into bloom. It had acquired under neglect the dry, arid condition indis- 

 pensable to its prosperity. Tiie fuchsia is one of tlie most attractive of ordi- 

 nary conservatory or ])arlor plants, Init nature has located its rut in coolness 

 and shade, and the follower of ruts who, in our climate, oblivious of this pe- 

 culiarity, attempts to compel its adaptation to a warm, sunny exposure, will 

 need but a short time to become assured that it will not take kindly to the 

 change. 



No one but the agricultural horticulturist will, wc trust, either plant an 

 orchard in a grain field, or sow grain in an orchard, from unwillingness to 

 waste the use of his land ; and he will surely learn, in tlie expensive school of 

 experience, that the two cannot be made to prosper in the same rut at the 

 same time. 



The very wise and considerate young horticulturist may imagine that nature 

 is mistaken in restricting the growth of his cherry trees by causing the outer 

 fibrous bark to encircle the trunk, and either slit it vertically with his all-cor- 

 recting knife, or otherwise peel it wholly away; but the outcome will certainly 

 convince him that her mistakes are less common than he had supposed, and 

 that she rarely exchanges ruts with even the most expert horticulturist. The 

 emigrant from the cool, humid climate of old England, whose subdued tem- 

 peratures and mellow lights are born of the tepid waters, tempered and kindly 

 loaned her from beneath the fervid suns of Uncle Sam's domains, will have, 

 under these conditions, worn for himself a rut, in which he will probably essay 

 also to travel on this side of the water, telling us to use the knife freely upon 

 our orchard trees — "open their heads and let in the air and light;" but time 

 and experience will not fail to teach him that this rut is not one of nature's 

 devising, but a mere local expedient rather, and not to be tolerated here — 

 especially not under the brighter and more arid skies of the west, with its 

 extreme alternations of temperature. 



On the other hand, there are those among us, even "to the manner born," 

 who tell us that, at the period when the horticultural afflatus may be expected 

 to inspire them to action, and when their impulsive jack-knives might be ex- 

 pected to marshal themselves against the persistent efforts of nature, possibly 

 for the repair of earlier mistakes, they manage to "lose'' these, to them, ob- 

 jectionable implements — meaning to be understood as in the main opposed to 

 their use, thus, in dissent from the former idea, vibrating, pendulum like, to 

 the opposite extreme, and making to themselves a counter rut, possibly quite 

 as far aside from the true and proper mean. This very human tendency to 

 draw conclusions and fall into practices based upon an inadequate concej^tion 

 of principles or facts, often, if not, indeed, usually, accepting the conclusions 

 or practice of others at second hand, lies very largely at the bottom of the 

 faulty practice and unprofitable rut-following of those engaged in horticultural 

 pursuits, to say jjothing of "the rest of mankind." 



Of all those who grow the peach, how few have discovered that nature has 

 established for it the invariable law that neither foliage nor fruit shall bo pro- 

 duced from wood of more than a single year's growth; and hence, that the life 

 of a shoot beyond the second year, except by an extension of its growth, is 

 impossible. Upon this fact, or in this rut, lies the basis on which must depend 

 any and all successful management of the peach tree. Its extreme tendency, 

 at least in our climate, to the continuous elongation of its stronger shoots at 

 the expense of the weaker ones, justifies, and in some sense necessitates, the 

 "shortening-in" system of pruning as a means of forcing a continuous growth 

 upon the weaker central shoots; thus supplying them an annual crop of buds 



