PRUNING. 149 



the low, compact form, when an excessive qnantity 

 of fruit has set, it becomes an easy task to tliin out 

 the overplus, and concentrate the sap in that number 

 which can be perfectly matured. 



4. A much larger number can be planted on a 

 given area. Instead of forty pear trees, planted at 

 forty feet apart, two hundred to four hundred may, 

 for many years, occupy the same area, and yield their 

 fruit to a whole generation without crowding. It is 

 much easier to cut down a fruit tree that cost a few 

 shillings, than it is to obtain it with fifteen years' ad- 

 ditional growth for ten dollars. Many a man would 

 hesitate to plant ten acres with four hundred pear 

 trees, even when by pyramidal gro^^th he could obtain 

 a bushel from each, at six to eight years of age, who 

 would gladly cover one acre with the same number, 

 could he be assured that they would fruit equally well. 



5. Pyramidal trees, by their comparatively low 

 stature, are protected from high winds, and often pre- 

 serve their fruit when the tall tree has lost a large 

 portion of the crop : their limbs are much less ex- 

 posed to being broken by storms, or borne down by 

 weight of fruit — whose power is much increased by 

 growing at the end of a long branch, which acts as a 

 lever. 



6. Pyramidal trees arc less liable to wrenching 

 from the perpendicular, turning over by the roots, or 

 breaking off: having tlieir widest diameter at or 

 near the ground, they offer little resistance to the 

 wind ; and never exhibit the distorted, leaning atti- 

 tudes that characterize thousands of orchards. 



7. The trunk is protected by the foliage from the 



