No. 124.J 139 



is estimated to contain upwards of eighty per cent of fructifying 

 power. Heretofore it has been known that all manures in a severe 

 drought, have proved rather injurious than beneficial, but this new 

 compound, from the experiments that have been made, shows the 

 reverse, and it is believed it will remedy some of the complaints that 

 heretotbre have been made against poudrette. Experiment No. 2, 

 combines the power of retaining the gas called ammonia, in the night 

 soil, thereby preventing its sudden evaporation as some suppose, and 

 it will attract and retain moisture, -as evidenced in the experiments 

 that have been made this season. It will enable the manufacturer 

 to reduce the price of the article, if taken from the factory; and 

 will enable corn growers in Maine, New-Hampshire and other places, 

 to raise crops of corn wnich are now usually cut off by the frost. 



A. D£Y, 

 .JVew-York, September I2th, 1843^ 



Remarks on Pruning. 



Although pruning Is an operation of very general practice, Its 

 principles are but little regarded, and often great injury is done to 

 trees by injudicious management. It is an art which cannot be wholly 

 learned from books, or by lectures, but requires a well grounded 

 knowledge of vegetable physiology, and a strict observance of the 

 nodes of growth of the various kincis of trees. In order to execute 

 with success this ve^y important branch of arboriculture, it is abso- 

 lutely essential to carefully observe the periods of the flow of the 

 sap, and of the appearance of the leaves; the growth of the branches; 

 ^nd the manner each kind is disposed to prod xe fruit. For orna- 

 mental and forest trees require their iieads to be regulated and bal- 

 anced, so that one side may not Lave a disproportionate number or 

 weight of branches to the other, and those of trees which stand along 

 the bonders of cultivated fields, often require foreshortening so as 

 to prevent their shades frem injuring the crops; and in order to pre- 

 serve the vigor of fruit trees, to render them more beautiful, and to 

 •cause the fruit to be larger and better flavored, provision should al- 

 ways he made for a sufficient quantity of bearing wood, duly dis- 

 tributed in every part of the trees, and properly exposed to tlie air 

 and light, and at the same time to remove all superfluous and useless 

 branches, which tend to exhaust and cause premature decay. 



There is a prevailing opinion, that if trees be pruned when the sap 

 is in free circulation, they will " bleed," and thereby deprive them- 

 selves of a portion of their chief food and nourishment. This " bleed- 

 ing,", as it is termed, can be of no essential harm to a tree, as nearly 

 two-thirds of the sap is thrown off by evaporation through the sur- 

 faces of the loaves, after having performed its most important func- 

 tions, while the other third is supposed to undergo peculiar changes, 

 and contributes to the formation of wood, bark, leaves, fruit, &c. 

 There is also a popular notion, that w^hen branches are taken from a 



