General Notices. 453 



saving seed from the 10-week, &c., is not to permit more than seven or 

 eight pods to mature their seed on one plant, after the seed is ripe, it is 

 best preserved in the seed-vessels, until it is required to be sown. {Id. pp. 

 471—472.) 



Summer Pruning of Apple Trees. — Among the Horticultural operations 

 which demand attention in the summer, is one that few gardeners think of 

 practising; and which, if put in practice, is often performed either too 

 soon or too late. We allude to the August stopping of apple shoots. 



It is well known that very large quantities of admirable fruit can be 

 obtained from well managed dwarf standard apple trees ; and that it is 

 generally finer than what comes from tall standards. But gardeners are 

 continually failing in their management of these trees, which may too often 

 be seen running to wood, and but thinly sprinkled with a crop. Neverthe- 

 less, the management is so simple that a maid-servant may undertake it. 

 All that is necessary to insure abundant fruit is to practise diligently the 

 August stopping. This consists in breaking or cutting off at thai season, 

 from three to four inches of every summer shoot, and then in mid-winter 

 cutting back two thirds or one half more of such shoots, so as to reduce 

 them to the length of four to six inches. 



The effect of this system is to prevent the sap of the trees from expend- 

 ing itself in the ever-lengthening of branches. The ends of the summer 

 shoots being broken off, the sap is arrested in its onward course, and forced 

 into lateral channels. Those lateral channels are the buds in the axils of 

 the lower leaves. There it collects, is occupied in the organization of short 

 lateral branches, which finally become fruit-bearing spurs. In this way, 

 we have seen dwarf trees covered with bearing wood down to the very 

 graft. 



If observed from the beginning, this practice renders a dwarf tree a most 

 prolific object. If neglected at first, it may at any time afterwards be put 

 in force with this difference in the result, that it takes a much longer time 

 to bring into bearing a tree rendered barren by long mismanagement than 

 to secure abundance from a tree well treated from its earliest youth. 



The reason why August is chosen for the operation i.'« this : if the sum- 

 mer shoots are shortened earlier, the side-buds will all break from the exces- 

 sive influx of sap ; if performed later, there will not be a sufficient propul- 

 sion of sap into them to effect the desired object. It will frequently happen 

 that with the best management some of the side-buds will break ; but they 

 will be near the end of the branches, and will be removed v/ith the winter 

 pruning. 



We have said that in winter pruning the shoots are to be cut back to the 

 extent of half or two thirds of their length. It is hardly necessary to 

 explain that it is only the weakest shoots that require to be shortened by 

 two thirds, and that the strongest are to be left with half their length. 

 {Id. p. 543.) 



Cultivation of the Strawberry. — A fictitious manure of my own devising 

 having been successful with me, I beg to preface the receipt with some 



