70 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



trunk ; no dead limbs should be suffered to remain, nor 

 even thrifty branches tha,t have an irregular tenden- 

 cy, running inwards, and rubbing against each other. 

 Such branches as intersect or cross each other, and 

 thus occasion confusion in the crown of the tree, 

 ought to be removed, and all others cleared of suck- 

 ers to their very extremities; and indeed it will be 

 necessary to prune out a good proportion of the top 

 branches, in order to spread open the crown of the 

 tree, to admit a free circulation of air and the rays of 

 the sun, which are as essentially necessary to mature 

 and ripen the fruit. Those superfluous lateral branch- 

 es which grow irregularly, and all dead wood, should 

 be annually extirpated, to give the proper bearing 

 branches sufficient room without injuring the beauty 

 of the tree, leaving the fruit branches as nearly equi- 

 distant as possible. Such branches as have received 

 any material injury ought to be removed. If the 

 tree in its first or second sap tend to shoot abundance 

 of wood, the young shoots should be pinched off while 

 tender, but never cut while the sap is flowing, because 

 the tree, by cutting at that time, is apt to run into 

 wood, and the blossom buds liable to be injured by be- 

 ing deprived of sap. Never suffer a sucker to remain 

 near the root, from one year to another, nor by any 

 means upon the body or trunk, which is not intended 

 to be permanent. Those vigorous young shoots, 

 which often spring from old arms, near the trunk, and 

 incline to grow up into the head, must be annually 

 extirpated, lest they fill the tree with too much wood. 

 A sufficient portion of fertile wood should be left in 

 every part, but leave no useless branches, to exhaust 

 the nutritive powers, and thereby accelerate the de- 

 cay of the tree. Mr. Marshall, in his Rural Econo- 

 my, observes, that "a redundancy of wood is the cause 

 of numerous evils. The roots, or rather the pastur- 

 age which supports them, is exhausted unprofitably 5 



