AUTUMN AND AUTUMNAL FLOWERS. 273 



ing every sucker and shoot as it starts, and the second, by finding full 

 work for the sap above, and by giving it a free passaoje. 



If tlien, in cutting the top of a tree at pruning time, you leave a 

 couple of buds on every shoot of last year's growth, or three at most 

 upon a very strong one, there will be quite enougli to occupy the sap, 

 keep the tree within bounds, make it mucli handsomer, save tlie sap 

 the expense of maintaining old wood, and give it a free course. If 

 there be more sap than enough, a fresh shoot will likely enough start 

 from tlie crown of the graft, or the rings upon tlie first year's shoot, 

 and increase the head of tiie tree, as well as bring you back with new 

 wood nearer home — a matter always desirable, as tending to keep the 

 head from stragerlino-. 



Cutting to the lowest buds always leaves the sap with but a short 

 channel to pass through, strengthens the branch below the buds, and 

 is every way beneficial, if care be taken that a sufficiency be left to 

 occnpy the sap. 



_ If the tree be not pruned at all, it will lose its shape entirely in a 

 single year, afford little or no bloom the next, and eventually straggle 

 to death. 



Trimming the shoots has nothing essentially different in the manner 

 of execution to trimming the stock. In trimming to a bud, barely the 

 thickness of a sixpence should be left above the bud, and the excision 

 should form a slant about equal to that caused by dividing a square 

 from angle to angle : if more were left above the bud, it would die 

 down to the bud, and prevent the bark from healing over the wound ; 

 in general, the line of the bud is the slant the knife should make in its 

 passage through the shoot. 



Cutting out old wood should always take place where it can, the 

 desirable point being to keep near home, as it is called ; when, there- 

 fore, your tree throws out a fresh and vigorous shoot, close to the base 

 of an old branch which has straggled too far from the graft, cut out 

 the old wood close to its base, leaving the young shoot to supply its 

 place, and receive its nourishment. This principle, well applied, will 

 always keep the trees in proper bounds. 



AUTUMN AND AUTUMNAL FLOWERS. 



The present period of the year suggests that some remarks on the few 

 fiowers of the season will not be unacceptable to your readers, and with 

 that impression I forward the following for insertion in the November 

 mmiber, which will be succeeded by others. 



*' Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain. 

 Comes jovial on." 



" And you, in gay variety that grace. 



In later months, with beauty the parterre. 

 Making a snnshine in the shady place, 



As Una and her milk-white lamb were tliere." 



