36 PRUNING. 



The wash of soft soap is also a very good one for many purposes. 

 Though not equal for general purposes to the potash wash, it is better for 

 old trunks with thick and rigid bark, as a portion of it remains upon the 

 surface of the bark for some time, and with the action of every rain is 

 dissolved, and thus penetrates into all the crevices where insects may be 

 lodged, destroying them, and softening the bark itself. 



2. Pruning to induce Fruitfulness. 



There are advantages and disadvantages attending all seasons of 

 pruning, but our own experience has led us to believe that, practically, 

 a fortnight before midsummer is by far the best season on the whole for 

 pruning in the Northern and Middle States. Wounds made at this 

 season heal over freely and rapidly ; it is the most favorable time to 

 judge of the shape and balance of the head, and to see at a glance which 

 branches require removal ; and all the stock of organizable matter in the 

 tree is directed to the branches that remain. 



When a young fruit-tree is too luxuriant, employing all its energies 

 in making vigorous shoots, but forming few or no blossom buds, and 

 producing no fruit, we have it in our power by different modes of 

 pruning to lessen this over-luxuriance, and force it to expend its ener- 

 gies in fruit-bearing. A successful mode of doing this is by pruning the 

 roots a proceeding recently brought into very successful practice by 

 European gardeners. 



Root-pruning has the effect of at once cutting off a considerable 

 supply of the nourishment formerly afforded by the roots of a tree. The 

 leaves, losing part of their usual food, are neither able to grow as rapidly 

 as before, nor to use all the nutritious matter already in the branches ; 

 the branches therefore become more stunted in their growth, the organ- 

 izable matter accumulates, and fruit-buds are directly formed. The en- 

 ergies of the tree are no longer entirely carried off in growth, and the re- 

 turning sap is employed in producing fruit-buds for the next year. 



Root-pruning should be performed in autumn or winter, and it 

 usually consists in laying bare the roots and cutting off smoothly at a dis- 

 tance of a few feet from the trunk (in proportion to the size of the tree) 

 the principal roots. Mr. Rivers, an English nurseryman of celebrity, 

 who has practised this mode with great success, digs a trench early in 

 November, eighteen inches deep, round and under his trees to be root- 

 pruned, cutting off the roots with a sharp spade. By following this 

 practice every year he not only throws his trees into early bearing, but 

 forces Apples, Pears, and the like, grafted on their own roots, to become 

 prolific dwarfs, growing only six feet apart, trained in a conical form, 

 full of fruit branches, and producing abundantly. Those dwarf trees, 

 thus annually root-pruned, he supplies abundantly with old composted 

 manure at the ends of the roots, thus keeping up their health and vigor. 

 The plan is an admirable one for small gardens, or for amateurs who 

 wish to grow a great many sorts in a small surface. Mr. Rivers, in a 

 pamphlet on this subject, enumerates the following among the advan- 

 tages of systematic root-pruning : 



" 1. The facility of thinning (owing to the small size of the trees), 

 and, in some varieties, of setting the blossoms of shy-bearing sorts, and 

 of thinning and gathering the fruit. 



" 2. It will make the gardener independent of the natural soil of his 



