179 



prevent it. — ^To avoid the evil in an early 

 stage of the business, would have been 

 easy ; the method of pruning previously 

 recommended, being elfectual in all such 

 cases, provided one point be attended to; 

 which it may be useful to remember in 

 numerous others. When a free growing 

 tree is observed to make shoots from the 

 stem, it is a proof the head is too little; and 

 therefore, at the next pruning, it should 

 be left larger than before. — Experience 

 is the best instructor in the matter of 

 quantity. 



The only way to obtain a clean steiB 

 in such cases, is by resorting to first prin- 

 ciples. The violent means previously 

 used, having turned the sap not onl}^ into 

 new channels, but to purposes the least 

 of all beneficial, nothing but gradual 

 means can reinstate it in its proper course. 

 The business may be tedious, but cer- 

 tainly not impracticable.— It is this; take 

 off, very close, more than half the number 



