116 THE NATURE AND PRACTICE 



one half its entire height. The trees being gene- 

 rally from twenty-five to thirty feet high, we gave 

 each tree a clear stem of from twelve to fifteen 

 feet from the ground ; and in doing this, we had . 

 often to cut olf large branches from tlie boll as 

 thick as itself, which gave the trees completely the 

 appearance of having been manufactured artificially ; 

 and, having been very thickly set with branches 

 all along the trunks, when they were pruned, 

 the entire trunk was a surface of wounds. With 

 regard to the tops of tlie trees, our orders were not 

 to do any thing, excepting where two or more tops 

 appeared to strive for the preference, in which case 

 we left only one, cutting away the others. Having 

 left that place shortly after this operation of prun- 

 ing had taken place, in five years after I went to 

 visit it, and that in order to draw for my own private 

 instruction a lesson of experience, by observing the 

 effect of the former severe pruning upon the trees; 

 and the consequence was exactly that which I an- 

 ticipated in the doing of the work. Upon looking 

 over those plantations, the ruin of which I had 

 myself assisted in bringing about, I felt sorrow to 

 think that gentlemen should be imposed upon by 

 ignorant men. All along the bolls of the trees and 

 about the wounds which had been made in the cut- 

 ting off of the large branches, young shoots had 

 sprung out; the trees were generally now hide- 

 bound, from having been suddenly exposed, and the 



