90 The Canadian Hrticulturist. 



growth was headed back, the soil kept well fertilized and cultivated and the trees 

 were regular, heavy bearers. One year I visited this orchard and, after passing 

 through many rows well loaded with fruit, came to a few rows that were entirely 

 barren. Asking the proprietor for a solution of the mystery, he said that the 

 preceding year they had cut back the new growth, as usual, up to where the 

 barren rows commenced when something occurred to prevent further pruning and 

 the result was a complete vindication of the efficacy of pruning. At the recent 

 annual meeting of the Western New York Horticultural Society, an object lesson 

 of the effects of pruning the Angouleme was exhibited. Some branches of last 

 year's growth were shown that had made a luxuriant growth of wood without a 

 single fruit bud, but other branches had been stopped in June, wtien about a 

 foot in length, and they were filled with blossom buds. A good way of pruning 

 pears to promote fruitfulness is to stop the growth of branches by pinching off 

 the leading bud. 



Grapes should be pruned quite early in March, if not attended to in the 

 autumn, and should they be neglected until after the middle of April, I should 

 prefer to leave them until the new growth had started one or two inches, when 

 I would cut back the previous year's growth, leaving one or two of the new 

 shoots. I have tried this practice as an experiment and found that the vines 

 bled but little — much less than when pruned in March or April — and they bore 

 heavy crops of fruit and made a good growth of vine. 



Raspberries and blackberries should be thoroughly pruned, either before 

 or soon after the buds start into growth. If the leading canes were stopped last 

 summer, as they should have been, by pinching off leading buds, then you have 

 but to shorten in the laterals to within a foot or so of the- upright canes. This 

 will remove the weaker buds, giving those remaining opportunity to develop 

 into good large berries. Currants and gooseberries should be kept thinned out 

 by cutting out superfluous new sprouts and occasionally removing an old branch 

 when past its greatest vigor and productiveness. No fruit tree or shrub or cane 

 can do as well when allowed to exceed its proper limit of growth as when kept 

 within due bounds. All modern fruit growing is something of an artificial pro 

 cess, as we have departed quite widely from nature's methods in order to reduce 

 it to subserviency to our wants. — P. C. Reynolds, in New York Tribune. 



NitrOg^en in Manure. — The nitrogen voided in manures is contained 

 mainly in the urine, and therefore the liquid manure should be saved even more 

 carefully than the solid, although not one farmer in ten fully realizes this fact. 

 We are also learning that the nitrogen (ammonia) in stable manure is something 

 of an uncertain factor. Wagner, the careful German experimenter, holds that 

 less than half of the nitrogen in manure is immediately available for plant growth. 

 This explains the advisability of absorbents in stables to keep what nitrogen 

 there is in the manure, and also the wisdom of adding ammonia in the form of 

 commercial fertilizers or by plowing under alfalfa, clover, etc. — Mass. Agl. Exp. 

 Station. 



