GENERAL PRACTICE. RENOVATING OLD FRUIT GARDENS. 79 



out all useless and dead wood, displacing old branches by cutting back to younger and 

 healthier parts. Much may be effected in making old trees useful by shortening irre- 

 gular growths, lightening heavy limbs, and opening out the heads, which are often 

 thickets of sterility through the exclusion of light and air. This ought to be done in 

 late summer whilst the leaves are upon the trees ; never later than October with stone 

 fruits, or than the immediate fall of the leaf with apples and pears. Early pruning 

 ensures the concentration of assimilated matter on the parts retained, and a vigorous 

 start, even of latent buds, in the ensuing spring. 



Bush trees may be too old and broken-down by years of over-cropping and neglect 

 for satisfactory regeneration, but they may possibly admit of improvement by judicious 

 thinning so as to bear some useful fruit until fresh trees can be grown to supplant 

 them. "Wall trees, particularly pears, can often be brought from a state of sterility to 

 a productive condition by the mere cutting away of old branches and training in young 

 wood ; and where the trees are healthy but the varieties worthless, they can be changed 

 and made useful by heading and re- grafting. If the ground be dressed with quicklime in 

 autumn, stirred or trenched two spits deep, the bottom broken up, the roots of perennial 

 weeds carefully picked out, the old trees and bushes freed of moss and lichen, young 

 trees planted in duly prepared ground, and the box edging re-planted, with necessary 

 cleaning and repair to walks, the garden at no great expense is transformed into a place 

 of interest, enjoyment, and profit. 



Even where it is necessary to effect complete renovation it is judicious to consider 

 the supply of fruit in the time that must elapse between planting young trees and 

 their coming into bearing, reserving wherever practicable the best of the old trees, 

 and doing the work in portions, a part one year and another the next. In many cases 

 complete renovation may be effected without any material loss of fruit being felt, and an 

 old garden made equal and in some respects superior . to new, not the least advantage 

 being that of existing shelter. Shelter to old gardens is frequently overdone, the trees 

 having assumed proportions the planter had not anticipated, or the needful thinning 

 neglected. If too near each other, or the branches too crowded, the trees must be 

 thinned so as to admit air and light, for exposure is preferable to shade and impoverish- 

 ment of the soil. 



Wall borders need careful management. The idea that new borders are necessary 

 often leads to the incurring of needless expense. Soils wear out through abstraction of 

 their constituents by crops without material being returned to sustain their fertility, but 



