PEOTECTION. 37 



means of a trench, it is advisable so to adapt the soil 

 and culture to trees as to avoid the need of positive 

 removal. 



For root-pruning by means of a trench, moist 

 weather should be chosen soon after the gathering of 

 the fruit, and a trench a foot and a half from the stem 

 of the tree, if it be young, carefully opened, deep 

 enough to bring the ends of the roots to sight. The 

 horizontal roots should there be shortened with the 

 pruning-knife, and wherever roots anywhere beneath 

 the tree are taking a vertical growth, they should be 

 cut through with a sharp spade ; the trench is afterwards 

 filled in with rotted dung and mould. The distance of 

 the trench from the tree may vary with its age : say, if 

 18 inches for the first pruning, it may be 24 two years 

 later, 30, 36, and ao on. 



If a tree is thriving with healthful but moderate 

 growth, and maturing fine fruit in abundance in pro- 

 portion to its size, and has space for its growth, let 

 well alone ; but if space be so great an object that the 

 tree is outgrowing the room it has, and can have no 

 more, or if it shows rampant growth and little fruit, try 

 the effect of root-pruning. 



CHAPTER VII. 



PKOTECTIOK. 



great drawback to the successful growth of fruit 

 in England is the bitter weather of our late springs. 

 There are few localities, except in the South-west, 

 where fair promise in blossom is not frequently 

 negatived by late, sharp, often sudden snaps of frost, 

 unseasonable falls of snow, or hail-storms. Often 

 our fruit trees have to bear up against the first and 

 second in February and March, and the last in April 

 and May, after a little genial promise of spring has 

 encouraged the stone-fruit and pears into vegetation. 



