MANAGEMENT OF WALL TREES. 131 



inducing gum need not now be insisted on. That gumming almost 

 invariably follows large wounds by the knife in stone fruits, is 

 a fact respecting which any one may satisfy himself, and that 

 speedily. I have examined the half-healed over wounds on trees 

 of but two and three years' growth, and found large secretions of 

 gum ; and I need scarcely say that when a tree once is disposed 

 to this disease (for it is a disease), the rule is, that it follows it 

 to the death, which consummation it accelerates, being at once 

 the cause and effect of debility. To return to our tree : we will 

 presume the bud to have been inserted in a peach stock of barely 

 sufficient diameter to accommodate it, and that a union has taken 

 place, and the heading down performed. As soon as the bud has 

 become a shoot a few inches in length, I would destroy the young 

 top while it is in a state of cellular tissue, in order that no 

 ultimate wound might remain. The lateral branches would then 

 break into shoots, and by judicious management a beautifully 

 formed tree fit for removal to the fruiting wall would be pro- 

 duced at the end of the growing season, in place of what, under 

 ordinary management, is a gross shoot requiring to be headed 

 back at the pruning season, thereby consuming a year without 

 any perceptible good being attained, to say nothing of the injury 

 inflicted by the knife. Suppose a tree, such as I have described, 

 to be a reality, why could not its future progress be wholly 

 guided without the application of the knife, at least to its 

 branches? Should an undue vigour evince itself, the remedy lies 

 in the gardener's hands. Root pruning will be a compensating 

 power. Its benefits need not be here insisted on. I am con- 

 vinced that a free use of the knife on wall trees cannot be too 

 strenuously combated. All our best gardeners are aware of it, 

 or why do they so warmly advocate summer pruning to obviate 

 that of winter ? I would render the office of the knife a sinecure. 

 That it could be effected is apparent. But the first step must be 

 taken in the nursery garden. Constantly wounding the branches 

 of a tree cannot, even in a simple mechanical view of the matter, 

 be deemed expedient ; and to allow a season's growth to run 

 wild, and then destroy it, in the case of young trees, seems to me 

 an anomaly unaccountable. Within a few days I have seen very 

 many peaches, nectarines, and apricots, of one year's growth each, 

 possessing more than wood enough, if properly distributed, to 

 form a large and handsome tree, waiting for the knife, from the 

 effects of which a whole season will be consumed. Surely this 

 cannot be sound practice ! The peach and other wall fruit are 

 so universally grown, and disappointments from seasons and 

 otherwise so prevalent, that any mode of treatment likely to 

 obviate them is surelji worthy of attention. There can be no 

 question but that the strengtli of blossoms to resist spring frosts 

 depends in a great measure upon the state of the wood bearing 



