100 SELECTING, PLANTING, AIsT) CULTIYATION. 



subsistence, when a fewer number would find nutri- 

 ment enough to insure a vigorous growth. 



When the pyramidal form is not desired, it is still 

 necessary to preserve the balance between the roots 

 and the top of the tree. 



Most horticulturists have stopped here in their in- 

 structions relating to planting ; but root-pruning will 

 be found fully as imj)ortant in practice as the proper 

 shaping of the top. Wounded roots must not only be 

 removed, and the ends of all the cut or broken ones 

 smoothly pared, but, in many cases, all the roots may 

 be shortened with profit in the growth and fruiting 

 of the tree. When large mass s of fibrous roots are 

 formed, as on the quince and root-pruned pear stocks, 

 they become so matted together as not easily to be 

 separated from each other by earth in planting. When 

 roots are placed in contact in the soil, they will usu- 

 ally become diseased, and lose their power of affording 

 sustenance to the tree. 



Before the tree is planted, the fibres and succulent 

 spongioles should be shortened to an inch in length, 

 and thinned sujficiently to admit of being readily sep- 

 arated by the earth distributed among them. 



It is now the received practice among horticultur- 

 ists to plant the pear or quince root so deep as to 

 cover the place where the pear-bud was inserted. By 

 this method, as the quince stock has been budded at 

 least four inches above the ground, we add six inches 

 to the depth of the root, plunging into a colder soil 

 those rootlets which have been formed near the sur- 

 face, and are not adapted to that deptli, and thus 



