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West are using this method to bring their young trees into 

 early bearing with astonishing success. 



One gentleman, a Mr. Spaulding, of Illinois, has an 

 apple grove of fourteen thousand trees, and has been ex- 

 perimenting with "girdling" to produce early fruitfulness 

 and large and fine fruit, with such success, that last year, 

 he girdled three thousand trees in his young grove. A 

 writer, who visited his place recently, describes the result as 

 wonderful astonishing. 



Alternate rows of young unbearing trees were girdled 

 in June, 1879, and this year they are loaded to the ground 

 with large, fine fruit, while trees along side of them not 

 girdlei, had little or no fruit on. 



The effect of girdling is twofold. When early bear- 

 ing is desired, the ring of bark should be removed while 

 the tree is growing, the year before. When increase in size 

 of fruit and early ripening is the object sought, girdling 

 should be performed the same year, after the fruit is set. 



The operation of "girdling" consists in removing a 

 ring of bark from one to three-eighths of au inch wide 

 entirely around the trunk of the tree, or large branches. 

 It may be performed with a knife, or saw with the teeth 

 set wide; but the neatest, cutest and most effectual little 

 implement for the business, is a tool used by mill and 

 lumbermen for the purpose of marking lumber. This little 

 instrument is handy to use ; does its work neatly, and 

 makes a clean cut one-eighth of an inch wide down to the 

 wood. 



There is every reason to believe that the practice of 

 girdling on the orange tree, will prove as successful in its 

 results as it has in regard to apple, pear, peach, grapp and 

 other fruits, and those who have recalcitrant orange tree?, 

 which are a way along up in their "teens," or out of them 



