22 TRANSPLAKTINa. 



ply the tree with a little weU-rotted manure, in order to keep it 

 in sufficient health and vigor to perfect its £ruit. The pruning 

 of the branches for this purpose is performed in midsummer, and 

 is not so much a cutting as a pinching off of the tender end of 

 the shoots with thumb and finger. This checks the growth of 

 the shoot, and concentrates the sap in the remaining part of the 

 branch, thus inducing the formation of fruit buds. At least this 

 is the tendency, and the operation usually produces, in a greater 

 or less degree, the desired effect. But it sometimes happens 

 that the tree is growing so vigorously that the buds will break 

 and form shoots. When this is the case, recourse may be had to 

 root-pruning; or by bending down the branches and fastening 

 them in a perfectly horizontal position, or even curving them 

 downwards, such a check will be given to the flow of sap that 

 fruit buds will be formed. When a tree is growing rapidly it 

 can not produce much fruit, and it is only when this wood-pro- 

 ducing energy has expended itself by the completion of the 

 growth of the tree, or has been checked artificially, that abun- 

 dance of fruit will be produced. By this it will be seen that the 

 formation of much wood is antagonistic to the formation of much 

 firuit, and that whatever will lessen the wood growth, without 

 injury to the health of the tree, will increase the production of 

 fruit. A top-dressing of coarse salt, sown broadcast, at the rate 

 of two bushels to the acre, has been found to increase the fruit - 

 fidness of some orchards. 



TEA^-SPLANTING. 



Deciduous trees can be best transplanted after the fall of the 

 loaf in autumn, and before the putting forth of leaves in the 

 spring. In mild climates and dry soils the autumn is the best 

 season for transplanting. This gives an opportunity to the 

 wounded roots to heal, and the soil to settle firmly about the 

 tree during the early part of the winter, and the tree is ready at 

 the first approach of warm weather to push out ita rootlets into 



