GENERAL PRACTICE. LIFTING AND ROOT-PRUNING. 173 



had to the condition of the ball of soil containing the roots, and judgment must be 

 exercised in watering. 



Lifting and root-shortening should not be deferred beyond November. Directly the 

 leaves fall, or when they give indications of falling, is the proper time to act. When the 

 trees do not ripen the wood well, but are disposed to make late growth, the work may 

 be done at the end of September or early in October. Judiciously performed, it can be 

 done with perfect safety then, if a good watering is given to settle the soil about the 

 roots. When lifting trees that huve been neglected, and are much crowded with strong 

 growths, it is not safe to do the work until the wood becomes firm and the leaves com- 

 mence falling. 



When a tree on the restrictive system makes shoots more than 12 inches long in a 

 season, always excepting the extensions or ends of the main branches, it is in a condition 

 for lifting. Some wood growth is absolutely essential to secure fine fruit, with continued 

 health and productiveness. Side-shoots G to 8 inches in length in a season meet every 

 requirement in maintaining root action, attracting and utilising the sap, and enabling 

 the trees to produce fine fruit abundantly, but these remarks have reference only to trees 

 grown on the restrictive system. Other descriptions of trees, however, need lifting and a 

 sort of root- pruning occasionally, such as stone fruits, which will have attention in 

 treating of their cultivation as special needs require. 



Trees frequently lifted produce a dense mass of fibrous roots, and in time many of 

 these become practically effete. Thinning the roots, therefore, of such trees is quite as 

 important as thinning the crowded clusters of spurs and blossom buds. This is a 

 branch of pruning that is little practised on fruit trees outdoors, though common enough 

 with trees in pots. In these a third, and often half, the old roots made annually are 

 cut away in the autumn, and the trees are thus kept well supplied with active feeders in 

 new soil. That is an overlooked essential of trees on the restrictive system outdoors, 

 and is one reason why the fruit grown on trees in pots is often so superior. When a 

 tree is lifted and its roots are matted together, they should be thinned, taking out the 

 oldest, longest, and black-looking, keeping the clean and most promising. If the work 

 is done with care and judgment in early autumn and a little fresh soil added, new roots 

 will form at once, very much more capable of abstracting nutritive matter from the soil 

 than could be done by the old, bare, and contracted tissues cut away. The result is 

 that more food is transmitted through freer channels, and the fruit becomes larger 

 in size, higher in colour, and better in quality. 



