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Pruning Fruit Trees, SfC. — Corn-meal in the West Indies. Vol. XI. 



country to supply perspectively, and get up 

 speculation, with its unhappy results, such 

 as are now experienced. — Biiffalo Adver- 

 tiser. 



From the Cincinnati Gazette. 



Summer Pruning Fruit Trees, and Thin- 

 ning Fruit. 



It is singular that so little attention is 

 paid by cultivators to the suminer pruning 

 of fruit trees. This, I presume, is owing 

 to custom having made it a general rule to 

 prune trees in the spring. The system is 

 however a bad one, in a certain measure, 

 which may be readily seen by a little obser 

 vation. For instance, all trees are liable to 

 make suckers from the centre, which ex- 

 haust the substance of it, and are useless ; 

 every one agrees, by common consent, that 

 useless shoots should be cut out, and it is 

 yearly done in tlie ensuing spring after they 

 have impoverished the tree; hence they are 

 deprived of about one-fitlh of their substance 

 annually. If these shoots were regularly 

 cut out early, after making some growth, 

 say in May or June, the substance that 

 they exhaust would go to nourish the other 

 branches and fruit. In the second place, 

 trees, grape vines, shrubs, &c., often become 

 very thick of wood in the summer, especi- 

 ally when they are in confined places; all 

 the young wood that is formed in this state 

 is weak and useless, because it cannot re 

 ceive the sun and air sufficiently to properly 

 mature it; this, too, like the suckers, de 

 prives the tree of a portion of its nutriment, 

 or at least that portion of it that is to bear 

 the succeeding season. This useless wood 

 becomes weak and sickly, the leaves turn 

 yellow, and are a nursery for various kinds 

 of insects, and according to custom is pruned 

 out of the tree the following spring; when 

 common sense tells us it ought to be taken 

 from the tree in summer, in order to give the 

 substance it has deprived the tree of to the 

 proper branches. 



I do not contend that the summer is the 

 season for the general pruning of trees ; for 

 I prefer the spring for this business; but 

 whenever trees or vines are thickly crowded 

 with summer wood, or any shoots, as suck- 

 ers or straggling branches, that cause trees 

 to grow of irregular shape, it should be a 

 general rule to displace them, in order to 

 keep the tree in proper shape and in a 

 healthy state. 



Thinning of fruit, when young, is also 

 essentially requisite in order that it may 

 grow to its proper size and quality. It 

 often happens, when the spring is propitious 



to fruit, that the trees and vines are so loaded 

 that it is impossible for the tree to render it 

 proper sustenance, so that the fruit neither 

 forms into a proper size or quality. This is 

 ot\en the case after a failure the previous 

 season, owing to which the trees are fur- 

 nished in the interval of rest, with a super- 

 abundance of fruit-buds or spurs ; hence we 

 often see alternate crops of fruit, which 

 should be as much as possible counteracted, 

 by trimming out a goodly portion of fruit, 

 when such abundant crops appear. This 

 adds much to the quality and flavor of the 

 fruit, and is also of a material use to the 

 tree, in order to give it vigor to furnish 

 fruit-buds for another season in a healthy 

 state, which are weakened by a superabun- 

 dant crop of fruit, and are often the cause of 

 failure the next season. When sickly trees 

 are overburdened with fruit, which is often 

 the case, owing to weakness, they should be 

 well thinned, in order that what is left may 

 be well matured, for it is very evident that 

 when fruit drops ofi' the tree half grown, it 

 has exhausted it in a measure to a useless 

 purpose. 



Edward Sayers. 



Consumption of Corn-meal in the West 

 India Islands. 



The consumption of corn-meal and other 

 American produce throughout the British 

 West India islands, since the emancipation 

 of their slaves, has considerably increased. 

 The negro, formerly limited by law to a 

 certain quality and quantity of food, has 

 now his choice of both, as far as his means, 

 obtained by labour, will admit; hence the 

 consumption of pork, beef, butter, lard, 

 cheese, flour, bread, etc., etc., formerly lux- 

 uries, are now in general use, and increas- 

 ing to an immense extent, while the con- 

 sumption of corn-meal, the only food during 

 slavery, is again reviving, and its use on the 

 increase, from the following causes. 



In the Antilles, Jamaica, Barbadoes, and 

 Trinidad excepted, the lands are too valu- 

 able, "under a protective system, and at the 

 low price of life's necessities in the United 

 States," to produce corn, yams, casadas, or 

 other substitutes for bread ; besides which, 

 (he operations of growing and manufactur- 

 innr sugar cannot be accomplished without 

 combined labour; hence the labourer, al- 

 lured by the magic of money, which he can 

 readily obtain for his labour, neglects even 

 the small patch of ground on which, as a 

 bondsman, he was entirely dependent for a 

 few pennies to purchase a bit of pork or 

 white bread — "then luxuries." 



Barbadoes consumes now from 20,000 to 



