196 Mii<!<oari iSiate Horticultural iSociefy. 



when first set out, just so that it is alive. If it has a fork cut one 

 off ; if crooked, give it a stake and tie it up. If the branches are 

 too high up so as to make the trunk too high, cut the leader back to 

 within a few buds and the lateral branches below it to one bud. 

 The formation of the lateral branches lower down is encouraged 

 by cutting notches in the stem above a bud at a point, where 

 branches are desired. This last is P. Barry's advice, but it has 

 been put in practice by me in a few instances, and with perfect 

 success and if memory serves me right, Samuel Miller has seen 

 trees so treated by me. 



Of course a great many trees are ruined by too much pruning. 

 Some people imagine that when they have taken a pair of hedge 

 shears, or some such instrument and shorn off the ends of the 

 shoots on the outside of the tree, they are pruning, just like they 

 would a hedge. Such pruning I consider worse or almost as bad 

 as the let alone system, this I think is the reason that a good many 

 horticultural men believe in the let alone system. But how many 

 lean missliaped skeletons as Barry justly calls them, do we see all 

 around us. Trees that are ready to fall down before they get big 

 enough to bear a crop of fruit, are so shaped that the first crop of 

 fruit or even a heavy sleet will burst them all to pieces. And let 

 me say right here that such trees can be found in abundance even 

 in the orchards of practical horticulturalists. No one can deny 

 that a good pruning at the proper time would not have benefited 

 such trees. 



Pears, I believe, come next to apples ; of these I have about 

 fifteen varieties, a good number of them I expect to see in fruit next 

 summer. I have the most of the standards in sod, but dig around 

 them in the spring, es23ecially the younger trees, though I never 

 stimulate them into active growth later in the season. When I 

 plant I always enrich the ground with bones, lime and ashes. 



The following varieties I have as standard : — Bartlett, Seckel, 

 Sheldon, Clapp's Favorite, Bloodgood, Doyn d'Ete, Early Harvest, 

 Buerre d'Aujou, Easter Buerre, Kieffer, Le Conte, etc. I would 

 not say that there is much difference except, that Kieffer, Le Conte, 

 Bartlett and Clapp's Favorite show the most vigor. I have not 

 seen any sign of blight yet. As dwarfs I have Duchess, L. B. 

 deJersey, Flemish Beauty and A. Mammoth for Pyramids and 

 Duchess, Vickers, etc., for Espaliers, which I am training hori- 

 zontally. My experience is, that Duchess and L. B. deJersey are 

 worth all the rest on the Quince. 



Quinces. — Of these I only have the Orange in purity of which 



