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in the bark;" that tlio main ofllcc ol' the l)ranchc3 is "to prodacc and 

 maintain a certain quantity of leaves ;" and that the business of the 

 leaves is "to attract the sap nj)war<ls!" pp. 155, 150. If such Im? the 

 principles of science, on whicli this system of pruning is founded, there 

 is little wonder that it should prove erroneous, when applied to practice. 

 What should we think, in the present day, of a scientific agriculturist 

 Vvho was unacquainted with the chemical affuuties ? or of an astrono- 

 mer, who assumed as the basis of a new system, that the sun and 

 planets moved round the earth 1 Yet it is singular, that the ingenious 

 author of the Encyclopedia of gardening (himself a skilful phytologist), 

 is almost the only writer of note, who has ventured to cast a doubt on 

 this rash system of pruning ; or to observe the vast difficulty and deli- 

 cacy that attend so scientific an operation. 



" The great importance (says he) of the leaves of trees, must never 

 be lost sight of. In attending to these instructions, their use is not, as 

 Pontey asserts, " to attract the sap," but to elaborate it, when propelled 

 to them, and thus form the extract or food taken in by the plant, into a 

 fluid analogous to blood, and which is returned, so fonned by the leaves, 

 into the inner bark and soft wood. It must be a very nice point, there- 

 fore, to determine the quantity of branches or leaves, that should he 

 left on each tree ; and, if no more are left than urhat are just necessary, 

 then, in the case of accidents to them from insects, the progress of the 

 tree will be doubly retarded. Experience alone can determine these 

 things. Both Pontey and Sang agree, that "strength is gained as 

 effectually by a few branches to a head, as by many." — Encyclop. of 

 Gardening, p. 582. It is true, Mr. Loudon might not consider his 

 multifarious work as a fit place for controversy: yet no one must know 

 better than himself the utter fallacy of the opinion last mentioned, 

 though propped by the name of another very meritorious nurseryman 

 and planter (Sang) ; and that it stands contradicted by the experience 

 of our best phytologists, and our best planters, for more than a century 

 back, from Grew and Miller, down to Boutcher, Knight, and Speechly. 

 No good phytologist will doubt, that it is according to sound science, 

 as well as good practice, in woods planted for profit, and in a soil and 

 climate which are natural to them, or belotv that standard, to cut away 

 a small proportion of the weaker branches, and turn the current of the 

 descending sap more abundantly into the stems. Such retrenchment, 

 however, must always be modified, by the actual wants of the trees, and 

 the fair proportion, which the size of the stem bears to the size and 

 number of the boughs. But to say, that " strength of stem is gained 

 as eflfeetually by a few branches to a head as by many," and that there- 



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