REVIEW. 



in possession of works already published — but the author explains these operations afresh, 

 in a concise, graphic, and agreeable manner. 



The point in which ]Mr. Barry's work mainly differs from other works published in 

 this country, and in which it is a decided improvement upon them, is one that we natu- 

 rally expected, both from its title, and its later date. We mean, of course, Pruning. 

 Most of the works on Fruits, hitherto, have been intended mainly, either for orchard plan- 

 ters who allow their trees to take the natural form of standards, in which pruning is a 

 matter rather to be avoided than insisted upon, in this climate; or else for cultivators with 

 smaller space, whose limited time and means does not permit them to indulge in any of 

 the special refinements of the art of horticulture, in the way of training or pruning trees — 

 the methods generally practiced in the gardens of Europe, where labor is so vastly cheap- 

 er. The fact, too, that almost all the fruits of temperate climates bear excellent crops in 

 many parts of the United States, with the simple conditions of a good soil and abundant 

 air and light, has had a tendency to retard the introduction of what may be called the re- 

 finements of fruit culture as practiced abroad — viz : the pruning and training fruit trees 

 as dwarfs, standards, pyramids, espaliers, and a dozen fanciful modes, some of which 

 greatly add to their productiveness and value, while others are highly ornamental features 

 in the fruit garden. The great value of these improved modes of training and pruning, is, 

 indeed, not for the million, who plant fruit trees solely for the sake of getting fruit, with 

 the least possible expenditure of labor or money on their part, but for the few who wish 

 to get superior fruit by superior and improved modes of cultivation, and who take that 

 kind of personal interest in their fruit garden, that makes daily attention to the growth 

 of a tree, a source of continual pleasure and satisfaction. 



No horticulturists at the present time, understand the art of pruning so thoroughly as 

 the French, as we had ample opportunity of ascertaining by personal inspection last year. 

 Mr. Barry's enthusiam on the subject of dwarf trees, pyramids and espaliers, was awa- 

 kened by the same sight, and he accordingly gives his readers ample details, based on his 

 own observation of the whole system of ''pinching," and the cutting back of the young 

 shoots — which constitutes the pith and marrow of the French mode — a system which we 

 are forced to say is the best possible mode of pruning, since it directs the subject in the 

 way it should go by means of foreseeing its future capacities and character, instead of al- 

 lowing all growth to go at random generally, but occasionally coming down on the poor 

 creature with a terrible onslaught of saw and knife, to the permanent injury of the consti- 

 stution of the tree. 



Our amateur readers who have carefully read the previous volumes of this Journal, are 

 acquainted with the secrets of the pinching and shortening-back modes of pruning which 

 lie at the bottom of the French practice, but they will also find Mr. Barry's work a 

 most convenient hand-book of reference, when busy with the details of the art. 



The author of the Fruit Garden very properly places M. Dubreuil, the French Profes- 

 sor of Arboriculture, at the head of the masters of the art of pruning, at the present day, 

 and quotes at length from that author the following admirable expose of his principles of 

 pruning, which we copy here for the perusal and study of our readers interested in this 

 subject: 



" The theory of the pruning of fruit trees rests on the following six general princi- 

 ples: 



1. The vigor of a tree, subject to pruning, depends, in a great measure, on the 

 distribution of sap in all its branches. 

 fruit trees abandoned to themselves, the sap is equally distributed in the different 



