VITALITY AND LONGEVITY IN FEUIT TREES, 



131 



(Jheir naked trunks. This marked tenden- 

 cy in all our forest trees to screen their 

 trunks, every passing traveller observes. 

 So the young pear or apple tries to screen 

 its trunk, or to prepare to, even in the 

 nursery ; but the jack-knife of the nursery- 

 man will not let it. It however makes out 

 to hide behind its fellows j and, as slaves 

 in the hold of a prison-ship keep each other 

 warm, so they continue to keep each other 

 tolerably cool, until six feet high and half 

 an inch through, they are consigned to the 

 orchard as branchless as they are worthless. 

 But now comes the tug of war ; the hot 

 sun scalds, and the poor tree tries to throw 

 out a protecting branch or shoot — now on 

 this side and now on that ; but no, that in- 

 exorable jack-knife allows no such liberties. 

 Beside, the farmer's grandson may want to 

 plough there sometime, and the limb would 

 be in the way ; and so, off it goes. So, for 

 for the next five years, the ill-fated tree 

 stands and scalds in the sun, and whips in 

 the wind, with a trunk or rather a stem 

 about the size of a man's finger, and six or 

 seven feet long, and with a head in size 

 and shape much resembling that of Ichabod 

 Crane, of Sleepy Hollow notoriety. But 

 no sooner has this poor head contrived to 

 afford, after all, a tolerable protection to 

 the imploring trunk below, than it finds 

 the fated hand-saw of the cultivator whisk- 

 ing about its ears, till at last, despairing 

 both of shade and of peace in this world, 

 it gives up the ghost and dies ; and who 

 blames it ? Surely no feeling man can. 

 Every cultivator in the west must have 

 noticed the extreme effort of all trees, and 

 especially of the pear tree, to conform to 

 the general law of our climate, and the 

 habit of all our forest trees, by attempting 

 to throw out side shoots year after year, 

 until the bark becomes so indurated that it 

 is impossible ; and then it betakes itself to 



the last resort of throwing a crop up around 

 from the root. Now, my dear friend, this 

 is an intimation to you, that the pear tree 

 does not intend to become a fishing pole, 

 nor a mere ornamental shade tree ; but it 

 intends to bear you some good pears one of 

 these days, and would do so if you would 

 let it alone ; it also intimates, in the most 

 modest and respectful manner, that under 

 a hot summer sun its poor body wants some 

 clothing as well as yours. 



The necessary effects of this sort of mu- 

 tilation upon the vital power and longevity 

 of a tree are at some points apparent. In 

 the first place, it is a constant interference 

 with the natural and healthful functions 

 both of the top and of the rooi; filling the 

 top and trunk with cavities, and patches 

 of dead and putrescent wood externally and 

 internally, and the root with paralized and 

 dead or dying roots and rootlets, — all in- 

 viting and hastening every natural tenden- 

 cy toward disease, — probably increasing 

 from generation to generation. What con- 

 stitutional effect it would have if all the 

 fingers and toes should be cut off from a 

 community of human beings through seve- 

 ral generations, and the sprouts trimmed if 

 they attempted to grow again, we cannot 

 say. But we can hardly think it would 

 not in the end enfeeble the natural consti' 

 tution of the whole race, and at last intro- 

 duce new and unaccountable organic or 

 constitutional diseases. And is there not 

 a strong probability that cultivated trees 

 have been constitutionally, as well as indi- 

 vidually, injured and enfeebled by a simi- 

 lar process ? The philosophic world have 

 paid little attention to the laws and condi- 

 tions of health in trees, compared with that 

 bestowed upon animals, and of course but 

 little is as yet certainly known. It has 

 generally been taken for granted, that be- 

 cause a tree could not be killed as easily 



