CHAPTEE XVI. 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 



TREES GIRDLED BY FIELD MICE. How TO SAVE 

 THEM. The obstacles with which the practical hor- 

 ticulturist has to contend are numerous. If he 

 wishes his orchards to produce paving crops of fruit, 

 he must be constantly on the alert, bestowing care 

 on this or that tree, removing a branch from another, 

 using the pruning knife for some special object, 

 either to retard or encourage growth in a certain 

 direction. The labor is not at all times arduous, but 

 constant watchfulness is required, and sound knowl- 

 edge of the business, before the thousand and one 

 annoyances that are constantly occurring can be 

 overcome. 



No experience of the horticulturist is so dismal 

 or discouraging as when, entering his orchard soon 

 after snow disappears in the spring, he finds that his 

 trees are badly injured many fatally so by the 

 ravages of those abominable pests, the field mice. 



The winters of 1867 and 1868 were the most 

 severe, and, in many respects, the most remarkable, 



