498 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



wood, crowded spray, and decayed parts. Also reduce long and outrunning ramblers, 

 and low stragglers, cutting them to some good lateral that grows within limits. Where 

 fruit-spurs are too numerous, then cut the strongest and most unsightly. Also keep the 

 tree pretty open in the middle. If it be necessary to take off large branches from aged 

 trees, use a chisel or saw, and afterwards smooth the wound with a paring-knife. In 

 case old wood is to be cut down to young shoots springing below, to make the separation 

 in summer will be of more advantage to those young shoots, though it is not a common 

 practice, on account of the liability of many stone-fruit bearers to exude gum, when a 

 laro-e branch is lopped in the growing season. Observe to keep the stem clear from all 

 lateral shoots, and eradicate all suckers from the root." 



2621. In pruning aged trees, that have run into a confusion of shoots and branches, 

 and whose spurs have become clustered and crowded, the saw and the knife may be ex- 

 ercised with freedom ; observing to cut clean away all useless spray, rotten stumps, and 

 the like excrescences. Thin out the spurs to a moderate consistency, so as to let the air 

 circulate freely among the leaves and fruit in the summer season, and to admit the rays 

 of the sun, so as to give the fruit color and flavor. 



Marshall strongly recommends " thinning the branches of orchard-trees for the same objects," adding, 

 " that it is in general much neglected." He recommends "a little pruning of standards every year;* 

 and a general one (rather free) every three or four years, to cut out what is decayed, and some of the 

 older wood, where a successional supply of young may be obtained to succeed, as the best way to keep 

 the trees in vigor, and have the best of fruit ; for that which grows on old wood gets small and austere." 

 The same author judiciously remarks, that trees with heavy fruit, as the apple and pear, should have, if 

 possible, their branches rather upright ; but that light-fruited trees, such as the cherry, will admit of 

 drooping branches. 



2622. The season for pruning orchards is generally winter or early in spring — not 



later than February, according to Abercrombie and Nicol. Quintiney says, " A weak 



tree ought to be pruned directly at the fall of the leaf." And Abercrombie, " To prune 



in autumn strengthens a plant, and will bring the blossom-buds more forward ; to cut 



the wood late in spring tends to check a plant, and is one of the remedies for excessive 



luxuriance." 



2623. Treatment of deformed or diseased trees. Where a tree is stinted, or the head ill shaped, from 

 being originally badly pruned, or barren from having overborne itself, or from constitutional weakness, 

 the most expeditious remedy is to head down the plant within three, four, or five eyes (or inches, if an 

 old tree) of the top of the stem, in order to furnish it with a new head. The recovery of a languishing 

 tree if not too old, will be further promoted by taking it up at the same time, and pruning the roots ; for 

 as on the one hand, the depriving too luxuriant a tree of part even of its sound healthy roots will moderate 

 its' vigor • so, on the other, to relieve a stinted or sickly tree of cankered or decayed roots, to prune the 

 extremities of sound roots, and especially to shorten the dangling tap-roots of a plant, affected by a bad 

 sub-soil, is in connection with heading down or very short pruning, and the renovation of the soil, and 

 draining, if necessary, of the sub-soil, the most availing remedy that can be tried. (Abercrombie.) 



2624. A tree often becomes stinted from an accumulation of moss, which affects the 

 functions of the bark, and renders the tree unfruitful. This evil is to be removed by 

 scraping the stem and branches of old trees with the scraper ; and on young trees a hard 

 brush will effect the purpose. Abercrombie and Nicol agree in recommending the 

 finishing of this operation by washing with soap-suds, or a medicated wash of some of 

 the different sorts for destroying the eggs of insects. In our opinion lime-water, or even 

 water alone, is better than any of these applications. 



2625. Wherever the bark is decayed or cracked, Abercrombie and Forsyth direct its removal. 

 Lyon, of Edinburgh,, has lately carried this practice to so great a length as even to 

 recommend the removal of a part of the bark on young trees. Practical men, in general, 

 however, confine the operation to the cracked bark which nature seems to attempt throw- 

 ing off; and the effect, in rendering the trees more fruitful and luxuriant, is acknow- 

 ledged by Neill in his Account of Scottish Gardening and Orchards, and by different 

 writers in the London and Edinburgh Horticultural Transactions. 



2626. The other diseases to which orchard-trees are subject, are chiefly the canker, gum, 

 mildew, and blight, which, as we have already observed, are rather to be prevented by 

 such culture as will induce a healthy state, than to be remedied by topical applications. 

 Too much lime, Sir H. Davy thinks, may bring on the canker, and if so, the replacing 

 a part of such soil with alluvial or vegetable earth, would be of service. The gum, it is 

 said, may be constitutional, arising from offensive matter in the soil ; or local, arising 

 from external injury. In the former case, improve the soil ; in the latter, apply the 

 knife. The mildew, it is observed by Knight and by Abercrombie, " may be easily 

 subdued at its first appearance, by scattering flour of sulphur upon the infected parts." 

 As this disease is now generally considered the growth of parasitical fungi, the above 

 remedy is likely to succeed. For the blight and caterpillars, Forsyth recommends burn- 

 ing of rotten wood, weeds, potatoe haulm, wet straw, &c. on the windward side of the 

 trees when they are in blossom. He also recommends washing the stems and branches 

 of all orchard-trees with a mixture of " fresh cow-dung with urine and soap-suds, as a 

 white-washer would wash the ceiling or walls of a room." The promised advantages 

 are, destruction of insects, and " fine bark;" he adds, " when you see it necessary take 

 all the outer bark off." 



