FEBRUARY. 79 



ing out trees by merely digging a hole large enough to admit 

 the roots, and in filling it with rich compost or manure, while 

 the surrounding ground is hard, or in a barren state. The 

 consequence is, that the roots do not spread around, or pene- 

 trate to sufficient depth, but are confined to a narrow spot of 

 good compost, at least for the first year or two. there to absorb 

 food for the tree. A long drought in the summer is very 

 likely to prove ruinous to the tree ; but, if it does survive 

 this abuse, it will be so stunted, that, the next year, it will 

 make little or no progress. If the ground be not thoroughly 

 trenched, it will be better to put the manure some distance 

 from the roots, and cover in the latter with the ordinary soil. 

 The rationale of this will at once appear to every intelligent 

 reader. The roots being the absorbents of food for the 

 plants, they strike out in all directions in search of the neces- 

 sary elements for supplying the natural wants of vegetation. 

 As soon as they meet with this supply of nutriment, they 

 pass on less rapidly ; and the man who digs a "narrow pit" 

 for his fruit trees, and fills it in with rich compost, will find 

 that he surrounds their roots with an almost impenetrable 

 wall : especially is this the case, if his soil be of a hard and 

 retentive na,ture. 



Another very apparent abuse I shall notice — an abuse even 

 more general, and, in this climate, more detrimental, than the 

 above ; and, so far as I recollect, I have not met with any 

 writings condemning the practice. It is that of robbing 

 young trees of their lower branches, for three or four feet, 

 leaving a naked stem to be scorched by the rays of the sun. 

 Who, that knows anything of vegetable physiology, would 

 not see the impropriety of thus stripping a tree of its cloth- 

 ing ? — laying bare its stem to be burned and blistered, and its 

 vital fluids exuded by the evaporating power of " Old Sol " ? 

 But this is not the only evil that arises from this very ridicu- 

 lous practice of pruning. If it be true that the sap flows up 

 through the medulla, and is elaborated in the leaves, return- 

 ing down the inner bark, producing a new layer of wood, 

 does it not at once appear that, by the sun's rays striking so 

 powerfully on the stem, the sap is impeded in its progress. 



