ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 227 



ment, everything can be sacrificed to the production of 

 wood and foliage. But in fruit-trees wood Ls nothing and 

 fruit is evirything. We push for quantity and quality of 

 fruit ; and would not regard the wood or foliage at all, if it 

 were not indispensable as a means of procuring fruit. That 

 is the most skillful treatment of fruit-trees which involves a 

 just compromise between the wants of the tree^ and the 

 abundance and excellence oi fruit. There is a way of gain- 

 ing fruit by a rapid consumption of the tree ; and there is a 

 method of gaining fruit by invigorating and prolonging the 

 tree. Two systems of cultivation grow out of these dif- 

 ferent methods — a natural system and an artificial system. 

 All cultivation is artificial, even the rudest. By natural 

 system, then, is only meant a treatment which interferes 

 but little with nature ; and by artificial, a system in which 

 skill is applied to every pait of the vegetable economy. 

 For conservatories, gardens, and experimental grounds, 

 there is no reason why an artificial system should not exist. 

 Moral considerations restrain us from stimulating a man or a 

 beast to procure a quick or a large return at the expense of 

 life and limb ; but in vegetable matters our preference or 

 interest is the only restraint. If any reason exists for forc- 

 ing a tree to bear young, and enormously, and after ten 

 years' service for .throwing it away, it is proper to do it. 

 For larger show-fruit we ring a limb expecting to sacrifice 

 the branch ; we diminish the life of the pear by putting it 

 to a dwarf habit by violent means. If we have any suffi- 

 • ciently desirable object to accomplish, there is no reason 

 why we should not do it. There may be as good reasons 

 for. limiting a tree to ten years as a strawberry bed to 

 three. 



There is another form of the artificial system in which 

 there is much to censure. When fruit-trees are set in gar- 

 dens, yards, etc., to be permanent, and lo7ig-lived, it is folly 

 to apply to them that high-toned treatment which belongs 

 to an ai-tificial system as I have spoken of it above. 



