PRUNING. 7 



likely to be thrown out by the frost of the first 

 winter, heap a little mound about the stem, to be 

 removed again in the spring. 



" 5. If your soil is positively bad, remove it from 

 the holes, and substitute a cart-load or two of good 

 garden mould. Do not forget that plants must 

 have food. Five times the common growth may be 

 realized by preparing holes six feet in diameter and 

 twice the usual depth, enriching and improving the 

 soil by the plentiful addition of good compost. 

 Young trees cannot be expected to thrive well in 

 sod land. When a young orchard must be kept 

 in grass, a circle should be kept dug around each 

 tree, we think to the extent or spread of the 

 branches. But cultivation of the land will cause 

 the trees to advance more rapidly in five years than 

 they will in ten, when it is allowed to remain in 

 grass. 5 ' 



PRUNING. 



In this department of culture no explicit direc- 

 tions will indiscriminately apply to each variety of 

 fruit trees. Peaches, cherries, and plums, are al- 

 ways in the greatest vigor when they are the least 

 maimed by the knife ; for when these trees have 

 large amputations, they are very subject to gum and 

 decay ; so that it is certainly the most prudent me- 

 thod, with stone fruit particularly, carefully to rub 

 off all useless buds, when they appear. Fruit trees 

 in this latitude should not be pruned in the fall or 



