INTRODUCTION. 



MY attention was drawn to the benefits fruit trees derive from 

 root-pruning and frequent removal about the year 1810. 1 

 was then a youth, with a most active fruit appetite, and, if a 

 tree bearing superior fruit could be discovered in my father's 

 orchard-like nursery, I was very constant in my visits to it. 



In those days there was in the old nursery, first cropped with 

 trees by my grandfather, about the middle of the last century, 

 a " quarter," i. e., a piece of ground devoted to the reception 

 of refuse trees of such trees as were too small or weak for 

 customers, so that in taking up trees for orders during the win- 

 ter they were left, and in spring all taken up and transplanted 

 to the "hospital quarter," as the laborers called it. The 

 trees in this quarter were often removed they were, in nur- 

 sery parlance, "driven together" when they stood too thinly 

 in the ground; or, in other words, taken up, often annually, 

 and planted nearer together on the same piece of ground. This 

 old nursery contained about eight acres, the soil a deep reddish 

 loam, inclining to clay, in which fruit trees flourished and grew 

 vigorously. I soon found that it was but of little use to look 

 among the young free-growing trees for fruit, but among -the 

 refuse trees, and to the "hospital quarter" I was indebted for 

 many a fruit-feast such Ribston Pippins ! such Golden Pippins 1 



