PRACTICAL HINTS TO AMATEURS. 



as guineas, and which have not been long enough in the country to enable them 

 to get more than one year's growth. If you want " big trees," order the good 

 old standard sorts. 



When a tree brought from a distance has been a long while out of the ground, 

 and looks quite dried u[), don't plunge it into a tub of water; that would be well- 

 nigh as fatal as giving a gallon at a single drink, to a man nearly dead of thirst. 

 Moisten the roots, and after shortening the branches severely, bury the ivhole tree 

 in the ground for three or four days. 



When you prune a small branch of a tree, always see that a hud is left opposite 

 the cut ; this will help it to heal over quickly; and you will assist the matter still 

 more, by making the cut always a sloping one. 



If you are obliged to plant trees in the rich but worn-out soil of an old garden, 

 and you have not time nor means enough to cart away part of the old soil and 

 replace it with new, you can renew its fertility by throwing a part of it up in 

 heaps, mixing it with brush, fagots, sawdust, or any sort of cheap fuel, and 

 burning it. 



Don't let insects of various kinds overrun your orchard or garden, and then 

 lazily fold your arras and say, " It's no use, tliis trying to raise things, now that 

 so many vermin are about." Spend three days, industriously, in the early stage 

 of the matter, in putting down the rascals, and then look around you and see if a 

 little industry is not better than grumbling. 



If you want early vegetables, set yourself, in winter, about making some boxes 

 to protect them. A few cheap boxes, a foot square, with a pane of glass in the 

 top, to put over tender things at night, will cost you but a trifle, and will give you 

 ten days start of the open ground. 



To have good currants, gooseberries, or raspberries, the old plants should be 

 dug up at the end of three or four good crops, and their places supplied by young 

 ones. If you plant a few cuttings of the two former, as you should do, every 

 spring, you will always have a supply of fresh plants ready at all times ; always 

 cut out all the eyes (buds) of a cutting, on that part which goes in the ground ; 

 otherwise you will be troubled by their coming up, year after year, in the form 

 of stickers. 



If you have a tree that grows " apace," but won't bcai', dig a trench around it, 

 and cut off a third of the roots. This will check its growth, and set it about 

 making fruit buds. 



Never buy fruit trees in the " market-places," of unknown venders, who have 

 no character to lose. You cannot tell by "examining the article," whether they 

 cheat you or not ; and you get your tree at half price, only to wish, when it comes 

 to bear, that you had gone to an honest dealer and paid ten times as much for 

 something worth planting. " Hog-Peach" trees are dearer at a penny, than 

 " George the Fourths" at a dollar. 



If you don't love flowers yourself, don't quarrel with those who do. It is a 

 defect in your nature which you ought to be sorry for, rather than abuse those 

 who are more gifted. Of what possible "z/se" is the raitibow, we should like to 

 know ? And yet a wiser than you did not think the earth complete without it. 



Do not grudge the cost and laljor necessary to plant a few of the best shade- 

 trees round your house ; and if you have any doubts about what to jilant, stick in 

 an elm. There are few trees in the world finer than a fine sweeping elm ; and 

 two or three of them will give even a common looking dwelling a look of dignity. 

 If you ])lant fruit trees for shade, they arc likely to be broken to pieces for the 

 fruit, and they grow unsightly by the time that forest trees grow spreading and 

 rageous. 



