The Canadian Horticulturist. 15 



Moore's Early. 



If it could only be made to produce a paying crop Moore's early would be 

 the most valuable of all grapes for this latitude. It is so early that it ripens 

 perfectly every year. Its only competitor in earliness is — that type of every- 

 thing objectionable in a grape — the Champion. The bunch is rather small, but 

 the berry is very large, of the same type of flavor as the Concord, and Worden, 

 but to my taste it is superior to any Concord I have seen grown in this district. 

 The amount of heat, in the average summer here, is not sufficient — except in 

 very favored locations — to fully ripen any grape that does not mature before the 

 Concord, hence the great value of a variety like Moore's Early, that we can 

 •depend upon to ripen even in the most unfavorable seasons. 



Ottawa. R. B. Whyte. 



PRUNING TO KEEP FRUIT TREES DWARFED. 



HERE are cases where a person has fruit trees growing in a com- 

 paratively small space, and it is desirable to check their growth and 

 keep them dwarfed. With this object in view, a very special sys- 

 tem of pruning would be necessary, and the object would be to 

 get growing branches nearer to the ground and not up in the air a 

 long distance, where the trees would make large spreading heads. 

 In order to accomplish this, one has to prune out, during the sum- 

 iner, most all the strong and vigorous growths at the apex of the plant, so as to 

 throw the course of the sap into the branches near the ground ; for, in a state 

 -of nature, the tendency of the tree is to go up, and to go up as rapidly as it can, 

 and the upper branches are, therefore, the strongest, and the lower branches are 

 the weakest. To cut the strong ones out, therefore, strengthens the lower ones. 

 It is on the same principle that we prune hedges. These we keep low, and for 

 this reason the plants are pruned in the summer time. The strong, vigorous 

 ■branches — the top of the hedges — being the ones cut out ; and this throws the 

 sap into the branches near the ground, thereby strengthening them and making 

 them of equal growth with those at the apex — and this work has to be done 

 during the growing season. If the same kind of pruning were done in the 

 winter time instead of the summer, the result would be that the next spring 

 innumerable strong shoots would push out where the upper ones are cut off — 

 and growing so strong they would absolutely draw the nourishment from the 

 lower branches. The pruning is done in this case while the sap is in vigorous 

 circulation, so that the channel may at once be turned into these lower branches. 

 One might take up any number of questions of trees in detail — apples, cherries, 

 plums, grapes, or whatever it may be — and the lesson is the same for all of them. 

 If you want to keep trees dwarf, with abundance of good growing branches near 

 the ground, cut out all the strong shoots at the apex during the growing season. 

 From time to time, we may give other similar lessons in regard to other objects 

 •of pruning — Meehan's Monthly. 



