314 Editors^ Letter- Box. 



G. F. — Several of my large pear-trees annually send up numerous small 

 shoots or suckers. Please give the best time and method for their removal. — 

 The only way to exterminate suckers thoroughly is to remove the earth, and cut 

 them off smoothly, close to the root. If cut at the surface of the ground, the 

 probability is, that two will spring up for every one cut off; and, where this pro- 

 cess had been many times repeated, we have seen a bunch of suckers produced 

 as large as a man's arm, all joining in a single stem at the bottom. A sharp 

 spade or chisel will be found handy in cutting up such ones. If there are only 

 a few, they may be removed at any season ; but if a large quantity of earth must 

 be removed, so as to uncover the roots, it should be done in spring or autumn, 

 when the trees are dormant. There is, however, now and then, a tree which 

 seems to have an incurable propensity to send up suckers (we have known 

 some, which, when dug up, had almost filled the ground with a solid mass of 

 suckers), and for such the only remedy is the brush-heap and a new tree. But 

 an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure ; and we advise all fruit-growers 

 to take care not to wound the roots of their trees, so as to excite them to send 

 up suckers. 



Mr. Editor, — We see in your letter-box of December a statement in re- 

 gard to an apple-tree, one of whose branches had been completely stripped of 

 its bark for a space of about four inches, yet continued " to live and grow " for 

 several years ; and it is asked. Why ? Now, permit me to say, I see no reason 

 why it should not do so, under certain conditions. The sap of apple-trees (as 

 of all mature exogenous plant.s) ascends through the young wood (which, as the 

 name ex implies, is the outside wood, or that nearest the bark). It thus 

 reaches the buds and leaves, causing their development. After having been di- 

 gested in the leaves (which are both lungs and stomach to plants), it returns 

 through the inner bark, depositing, as it goes, an additional layer of new wood 

 upon the outside of that of last year's growth. That is the way in which wood 

 is made. That is why trees die when stripped of their bark. They cannot 

 make any more new wood. The wood once new soon grows old and hard by 

 means of matter deposited from the sap. The sap can no longer rise ; for it has 

 no channels to pass through. Stripped of its bark, exposure to the atmosphere, 

 with its drying effects, hastens this process very much ; and the wood becomes 

 not only old, but dead on the surface. 



Now, I can imagine a growth previous to the accident in question so vigor- 

 ous as to supply an amount or thickness of young white wood in question suffi- 

 cient to stand the strain of these forces for several years ; thus allowing sap from 

 the parent-tree to pass up to its buds and leaves, developing them, and producing 

 an even unnaturally large growth of wood above the injured part: but I venture 

 to say, there was no growth at or below that. The descending sap arrested by 

 the wound must enlarge the branch greatly so long as it lives at all ; but die" 

 it must, and that at no very distant period. Here permit me to say, that when 

 a branch, or even the whole trunk of a tree, has been very recently girdled, a 

 liberal poultice of fresh cow-droppings applied to the entire denuded surface, and 

 l)ound on with a cloth, is an almost certain cure. Yours, S. C. Harris. 



Galena, III. 



