10 FRUIT BOOK. 



as it would be for a physician to prescribe for a 

 patient who labors under a severe and acute dis- 

 ease, on the mere report of the nurse, without a 

 personal inspection of his patient. I must be 

 pardoned, therefore, if I say, that nothing but 

 experience, founded on long observation as to the 

 growth of trees, will ever enable a person to dis- 

 cover the proper art of pruning." 



Root pruning of fruit trees is now practised 

 in England, as well as in some sections of our 

 country, upon too luxuriant growing trees, and 

 although an old practice, says Mclntosh, does not 

 appear to have been so generally attended to as 

 it deserves. Mr. Rivers, an English nurseryman, 

 says, " After several years' experience, I feel more 

 than ever the utility of root-pruning of fruit trees 

 when cultivated in gardens, and more particular- 

 ly when applied to pears, which, in rich and 

 moist soils, are apt to grow so vigorously, that no 

 fruit is produced till many years after planting. 

 Root-pruning, says Downing, should be per- 

 formed in autumn or winter ; and it usually con- 

 sists in laying bare the roots, and cutting off 

 smoothly at a distance of a few feet from the 

 trunk (in proportion to the size of the tree) the 

 principal roots. Mr. Rivers digs a trench early 

 in November, eighteen inches deep round his 

 trees, cutting them off with a sharp spade. By 

 following this practice annually, he not only 

 throws his trees into early bearing, but forces 

 apples, pears, and the like, grafted on their 

 own roots, to become prolific dwarfs, growing 

 only six feet apart, trained in a conical form, full 

 of fruit branches, and producing abundantly. 

 These dwarf trees he supplies with manure at 



