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and that the tree will decay the 

 sooner. The practice has been 

 follov/ed without reflection, and 

 without reason by many ; but the 

 error is so obvious, that any man 

 of observation may see it yearly ; 

 and any one, who doubts, may sa-. 

 tisfy himself in one season of the 

 incorrectness of the practice, by 

 making his experiments on a young 

 tree." 



This writer advises the farmer, 

 when he has fixed upon a limb to be 

 lopped off, if it is large and heavy, 

 to cut it first at some distance from 

 its insertion, to prevent its weight 

 in falling from lacerating the bark 

 at the shoulder, whence your final 

 cut is to be ; because this leaves 

 an opening for water to get under 

 the bark, and cannot easily be heal 

 ed. You may now saw the stump 

 close to the branch from whence 

 it proceeds with safety ; or if it 

 be a portion of a branch which is 

 to be lopped ofT, the cut should be 

 down to a sound, healthy lateral 

 branch, growing from the same 

 limb ; or if the limb to be cut off, 

 proceeds from the body or trunk of 

 the tree, then it should be sawed 

 close to the shaft. The wood in 

 all cases should be smoothed over, 

 and the edges of the bark carefully 

 pared with your knife, or hatchet, 

 so that the water will run off the 

 wound. If the cut be made on a 

 lateral branch, it should be sawed 

 obliquely or slanting, so as to leave 

 no dead wood, or wood to die,and 

 in all cases the cut should be on a 

 sound and healthy part of the tree. 

 If the branch on which it is cut, is 

 a healthy and vjjiorous one, it will 

 heal without difficulty, if pruned 



the last of April, or beginning of 

 May, but if in March, the wound 

 should be covered with a compost ; 

 but if the wound be large, so as to 

 require several seasons before it 

 can heal entirely, it will be better 

 to apply the compost,whether it be 

 pruned in March, or later. 



The third error in managing fruit 

 trees, according to this writer con- 

 sists " in the habit of encouraging 

 luxuriant upright branches to the 

 great injury of ihe natural horizon- 

 tal fruit-bearing branches ; these 

 are very properly called glutton 

 branches, because they consume 

 the sap which would otherwise go 

 into the lateral and fruit-bearing 

 branches, and in the course of a 

 few years, they leave the fruit 

 branches decaying and decayed ; 

 the farmer then resorts to his axe, 

 cuts away the dead and dying wood, 

 and leaves the glutton in full pos- 

 session of all the nourishment 

 which the roots afford ; but in re- 

 turn, this voracious member of the 

 orchard gives no fruit until many 

 years, and then it is of an inferior 

 quality. 



" To prevent this the cultivator 

 should suppress all the stiff, up- 

 right shoots the first year they ap- 

 pear, by cutting them off c/osc to 

 the branch from which they issue, 

 taking care not to leave the shoul- 

 der of the shoot, as he will in such 

 case have the same duty to perform 

 again ; but if the shoulder of the 

 glutton be cut away, the sap will 

 be distributed among the lateral 

 fruit-bearing branches, which will 

 be kept in vigour, and continue in 

 a healthful bearing state. 



"The compost best suited to 



