Domestic Notices. 371 



manure is when the fruit is beginning to swell, and has acquired, by means 

 of its own green surface, a power of suction capable of opposing that of the 

 leaves. At that time, liquid manure may be applied freely ; and continued, 

 from time to time, as long as the fruit is growing. But at the first sign of 

 ripening, or even earlier, it should be wholly withheld." " If liquid manure 

 is applied to a plant when the flowers are growing, the vigor which it com- 

 municates to them must also be communicated to the leaves ; but tvhen 

 leaves are growing unusually fast, there is sometimes a danger that they 

 may rob the branches of the sap required for the nutrition of the fruit : and 

 if that happens, the latter falls off." " And we all know that when ripening 

 has once begun, even water spoils the quality of fruit, although it augments 

 the size ; as is sufficiently shown by the strawberries prepared for the Lon- 

 don market by daily irrigation ; great additional size is obtained, but it is at 

 the expense of flavor: and any injury which mere water may produce will 

 certainly not be diminished by water holding ammoniacal and saline sub- 

 stances in solution." (Gard. Jour., 1852, p. 222.) 



Art. II. Domestic JVotices. 



City Mode of Pruning Trees. — Mr. Editor: Knowing that you take 

 much interest in everything relating to the arboricultural affairs of the city, 

 allow me to call your attention to the barbarous spoliations at present being 

 committed on the fine Elm trees on Washington street, especially on the 

 Neck, under the specious pretence o^ pruning, so I presume ; but assuredly 

 no one, in the smallest degree conversant with the growth and management 

 of trees, can behold the wanton destruction of these important adjuncts of 

 street ornament and comfort, without deeply lamenting the utter want of 

 skill and judgment exhibited by those who have the care of them. With- 

 out entering on the propriety or impropriety of decapitating large trees in 

 July, (a subject which I leave to your better judgment to speak upon, in 

 some of your future editorials,) I will just notice the modus operandi of the 

 present proceeding against those inoffensive and useful street scavengers, 

 as they have been daily committed during the past three weeks, much to 

 the annoyance and distress of all pedestrians, and especially every one who 

 has any taste for the beautiful in nature, and any desire for the luxury of 

 shade in these hot, scorching days, when it is truly a luxury to get beneath 

 the cool branches of a tree, and more particularly while walking on the hot 

 sidewalks. The operators get on ladders, and saw off" every branch and 

 twig to a height of thirty feet or more, according to the size of the subject- 

 Then, leaving two or three (in some instances only one) of the remaining 

 limbs, they denude them of every leaf, bud and branch, as far as they possi- 

 bly can reach or climb, leaving only a few tufts, or rather, I shnuld say, a 

 few wretched, miserable twigs at the extremities of the naked branches. 

 Quite a number of the most beautiful and promising specimens on the Neck 

 have been thus pollarded within the last fortnight, and some handsome tree* 



