PROCEEDINGS OF THE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 719 



with fruit tends to dwarf the size, not simply by dividing the pabulum the 

 ti'oe can supply among too many, but by bending* the branches with their 

 weight, thus retarding the flow of sap by compression of the vessels through 

 which it circulates. The shortening of bearing shoots, as well as removal 

 of suporlluous ones, exerts a well marked influence on the growth of the 

 fruit. Thinning out the fruit is of no less importance in the production of 

 fine fruit, than the skillful and intelligent use of the knife, for when a part 

 of the crop is removed, the energies of the tree, that would have been ex- 

 pended in maturing the entire crop with which the tree started in the pro- 

 cess of development are given to a reduced amount, that amount is devel- 

 oped into better proportions and as much better in quality as in size. 



ADJUSTMENT IN THE ORCHARD, PLANTING, ETC. 



Having selected your varieties, some acquaintance with the character- 

 istic forms of trees will be required so to adjust them in the orchard in 

 their relation to each other, to produce the most pleasing and artistic eifect 

 as well as to facilitate your operations in the culture they demand, and in 

 the gathering of the fruit. The knowledge of the habits of the tree will 

 enable thepruner so to guide his hand as most readily to secure the natural 

 and characteristic form much earlier than he can otherwise do. For not 

 only will the pruuer's time be lost, when his efforts are misdirected, he too 

 thus opposes and thwarts nature; she resists and struggles against these 

 efforts and her energies will be concentrated to reproduce what he has 

 ruthlessly destroyed; and thns the period of perfect development is post- 

 poned, a point that in the wood process must be reached in the great 

 majority of trees, before we see the begMnuing of the fruit process. So 

 tenacious will some varieties be of their characteristic form, that successive 

 efforts to change that form will be followed by successive efforts in the 

 reproduction of wood to recover what has been lost. And these efforts 

 will onl}' come, when as the wild colt broken in spirit meekl}' submits to 

 bit and bridle, so this refractory nature is controlled, by the long continued 

 labor of the orchardist; and thus it is that the tree that was destined to 

 become a, giant, remains a pigmy. But the process is laborious as the 

 system is unnatural. 



The Beech, the Chestnut, the Maple, the Basswood, have each their 

 appropriate forms. You know them whenever the eye can measure their 

 distinctive outlines. This is equally true of some, indeed of many of our 

 fruit trees, but the pear assumes almost every variety of form. Nature 

 gives us ill the Columbia a pyramid; in the Seckel and Urbaniste a conal; 

 in the Bloodgood and Dearborn seedling a round head; in the Doyenne 

 d'Etc an upright, towering form, and in the Rostiezer a straggling nonde- 

 serijit. Others are so refractory as appropriately to be classed with 

 neither, though under the judicious and continuous use of the knife may 

 readily be brought to assume some resemblance to one of these forms. In 

 this sportive habit of the pear the man of taste finds scope for the exercise 

 of his* most discii)lined faculties. The orchard, under his skillful manipu- 

 lation securing a symmetrical arrangemcLt, may be made in appearance a 

 very Eden. 



Oftentimes in the season of bloom will the attention of the beholder bo 



