PROPAGATION. 135 



right place ; this is to be done toward spring, and is ap- 

 plicable especially to those varieties that are prone to make 

 a single shoot the first year without branching, and which 

 have not been pinched-in or headed during the previous 

 summer to force out side branches. Cherries, plums, and 

 pears, and some apples, are very apt to make this kind of 

 growth. It should have been premised that all nursery 

 trees ought to be grown to one main stem, or leader, from 

 which all the branches arise, and to which they should all 

 be made to contribute their quota of woody fibre. It has 

 been asserted that the wood of a tree, instead of being a 

 cone, as its stem appears to be and is, it should be a column 

 of nearly equal size from the bottom to the top; that is, 

 the mass of all the branches taken together, should equal 

 the diameter of the trunk at any point below. A well- 

 grown stocky nursery tree, with its abundance of lateral 

 branches approximates this idea ; but the main stem of 

 such an one is very perceptibly a cone, rapidly diminishing 

 in diameter from the collar upwards. 



AGE OF TRESS FOR PLANTING. This depends so much 

 upon the views of planters, that the nurseryman cannot 

 always control the period at which he shall clear a block 

 of trees. Peaches should always be removed at oiie year 

 from the bud. Plums and dwarf pears will be ready to 

 go off at two years from the bud or graft ; so with apples 

 and cherries. But many persons, purchasers and sellers, 

 prefer larger trees, and they recommend that the trees 

 should remain one, two, or even three years longer in the 

 nursery. Others, a new school of planters, prefer to set, 

 out the maiden tree, in most of the species above named, 

 except some very feebly growing varieties, that will 



