The Gardener's New Director. 



TCheir Management when in Fruit. 



WHEN your fruit is fetjand of the bignefs of a fmall 

 nut, thin them to the fpaceof five or fix inches, 

 fruit from fruit, which will not only give you what is 

 valuable, but free your trees from being overcharged ; 

 which perhaps they would not recover in fome time. 



If the directions for pruning be duly attended to, there 

 will be very few complaints of bad crops by blights, or 

 branches dying, or bloflbms falling off before the fruit 

 forms, or even the fruit falling off the tree before it is 

 ripe, all which is owing to the negleO: of looking over 

 the trees at the proper feafons, whereby they are over- 

 charged with ill-ripened branches, or with too much 

 fruit. And here I mufl: inform my readers, that it is as 

 neceflary to have the branches of trees well ripened, 

 for bearing good fruit, as it is to have well ripened fruit 

 for the palate. A well ripened branch is one produced 

 in fpring, whereby it will have the whole fummer and 

 autumn to give it fufficient ftrength to refill the incle- 

 mency of winter, rendering its wood ftrong, and its 

 pipes for receiving nourifhment of a good texture, to 

 fupply the young fruit, which can only be produced by 

 pruning at the latefl: in the month of May. 



Blights may happen to trees ill-treated, but they never 

 will to trees managed as ^s here dire6ted. A gravelly 

 foil will blight fruit-trees ; but this is to be avoided by 

 making your borders as directed in page 21. They will 

 be blighted alfo by being too deep planted, but this is 

 to be prevented by raifing them ; or you may plant new 

 ones in the manner direfted in page 21. Unkindly 

 frofty feafons may happen to fpoil fome trees; but where 

 they are well managed, and become ftrong, they will 

 very feldom fuffer by the inclemency of the weather. 



Direniom 



