CHAP. Ill VILLA GARDENING 243 



delay will drive the sajD into the bottom of the tree, and although 

 the amputated shoots on the upjDer part of it push out laterals in 

 due time, which, if permitted to remain, monopolise the tree's 

 force, still the check of pruning the top first, by stopping the 

 outlets and forcing the sap into the lower branches, though it 

 may be kept up only for two or three weeks, will have visible 

 effect, and certainly tends to maintain the balance of power in 

 the tree without adding anything to the laboiu', or calling for more 

 care and skill. The little bush trees on the Paradise stock only 

 need a little thinning of the yoimg shoots to permit the air to 

 circulate freely among the foliage, and this will probably require 

 to be done about the end of June or beginning of July. It is 

 as well in all cases of siunmer pnming not to be in too great a 

 hurry to begin ; let the trees feel for a short time the impetus 

 which a considerable surface of leafage alone can give ; then, when 

 the check is applied, prune gently. This is the common-sense way 

 of doing summer pruning, at lea.st as I regard it. 



Winter Management. — Thi'S, in the case of standard trees, 

 includes what little pruning is needed, which should be done 

 annually. The object of such pruning is to let light and air into 

 the centre of the trees, and to encourage regularity of growth 

 by the removal of any branch which is growing in a wrong direc- 

 tion. If this is done when the branch is small, only a slight 

 wound is left, which soon heals over. The eradication of Moss and 

 other parasitical growth is work which should be done in winter. 

 The trunk and the large branches may be scraped and then white- 

 washed with hot lime, and the smaller branches could be dusted 

 over with newly-slaked lime when damp. Apart from its use in 

 destroying Moss, lime has a beneficial influence upon fruit trees, 

 especially in a non-calcareous soil, as fruits use up a good deal of 

 lime in the formation of their seeds and seed vessels. In orchards 

 where the Codlin moth has been prevalent, the cleaning and dress- 

 ing of the trunks of the trees will help to destroy the larva of the 

 moth, which, in large numbers, secrete themselves in the crevices 

 of the Moss-covered bark. The autumn and winter, too, is the 

 season for top-dressing and otherwise improving the condition of 

 poorly-nom'ished trees ; and there are plenty of them about — one 

 need not go far to find them. This is scarcely to be wondered at, 

 when everything the tree produces, even its leaves, is taken 

 away and nothing brought back ; therefore it is only a question 

 of time as to when exhaustion shall set in, and the other train of 

 ills which usually accompany poverty, or follow closely in its 

 wake, make their presence felt. There are many ways of helping 

 exhausted fruit trees ; the readiest method seems to be the appli- 



