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YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 65 



by cutting back half, or more than half, but always keeping 

 the lower branches of dwarf pears and other pyramidal trees, 

 longer and stronger than the upper ones. The tree naturally 

 pushes its growth upward, and this tendency must be restrained 

 so that you will get the bulk of fruit near the ground, thus 

 avoiding top-heaviness, and liability to branch-breaking by high 

 winds. Keep a due proportion between root and branches, so 

 that there will always be enough root to furnish food, and no 

 waste of strength in superfluous wood and leaf-production. 

 We aim at getting fruit in large quantity, and of distributing 

 it equally over the tree, that no one part may be overtaxed, or 

 weakened. Almost ninety of every hundred tree purchasers 

 set such store by the nice, long, smooth branches of their trees, 

 as they come from the nursery, that they spare the knife, and 

 set them out just as received. Let them beware how they are 

 thus " penny wise and pound foolish," for their trees are checked 

 and stinted in growth, and are left far behind others which 

 have been boldly and judiciously pruned. Many persons think 

 trees should be manured, like a hill of potatoes, at time of 

 planting. Such are likely to kill their trees by overmuch kind 

 ness. Good fresh surface-soil if light and sandy, all the better 

 is what should be put around trees at time of planting. He 

 would say nothing about hole-digging, for the whole soil where 

 trees were to be planted should be so well prepared that a hole 

 needs only be large enough to admit the roots. The roots 

 should be set about four or five inches below the surface. In 

 light soils they may be set deeper than in heavy ones, because 

 heat more readily passes downward. The thorough cultivation 

 of the soil among fruit-trees can be neglected only at the 

 planter's peril. 



In fields of grain the poor trees are smothered by their ava 

 ricious, or unwise, owners. When the rows are thirty or forty 

 feet apart, almost any farm crop may be grown between, but at 

 least six feet of ground beyond the extremities of the roots 

 should be unplanted, and kept as clean and as mellow as it 



