The Canadian Horticulturist. 163 



A wash of lime or strong lye from hardwood ashes after pruning, will add 

 much to the health and beauty of the tree. If a tough sod has been allowed 

 to grow around the roots of the trees, it ought to be removed at once and 

 chip or long'stable manure, plentifully substituted, mixed with hardwood 

 ashes moderately, to prevent mice from working around the trees. 



Pruning and otherwise caring for the tree or shrub, not only pays, but gets 

 you into sympathy with its condition jand prospects, and depend upon it, 

 the more interest you take in the welfare of your orchard and garden, the 

 greater will be your financial returns and the more your knowledge and 

 experience will expand, and you be concerned for the success of others as 

 well as your own. A right minded horticulturist will not keep his knowledge 

 to himself for the sake of monopoly, but will joyfully impart anything that 

 he has found valuable, that others may be benefited. Next in importance 

 to spring pruning, to fit the tree for the seasons growth, is the care in the 

 fall to carry them safely through the winter. 



If the season has been favorable for much new growth on the tree, it will 

 need special protection to carry it through. If you are in a northern 

 climate, you have need to give more attention to your protection and require 

 more patience in the management of your trees generally. Impatience to 

 see favorable results and lack of interest and care to produce them, are fatal 

 enemies to the welfare of the orchard and garden. I may add, in pruning, 

 try to have a leading centre to your tree and do not allow your tree to fork 

 or send off" too large low branches. If taken in time, forks and one-sided 

 heavy limbs can be prevented. It is the evenly balanced tree that bears 

 the heaviest load of fruit without injury. A fork in your tree splits down 

 when heavily loaded and a large one-sided limb either breaks down or drags 

 your tree one-sided and ill-shaped. 



Be sure to stake your young trees as soon as you set them out. Staking 

 prevents the heavy winds from loosening your tree at the roots, thus 

 preventing drying out, and in the winter, when your trees may be loaded 

 with ice, saves them from injury. It also prevents a bias to the south-east 

 from prevailing north-west winds and is a safeguard generally. A strip of 

 leather one inch wide and eight or ten inches long, will last a long time, 

 nailed to the top of your stake, just below the lower branches of the tree. 

 The stake can be driven within four inches of the tree without injury to it. 

 This might seem quite a task for a large orchard, but still it will pay in 

 more ways than one. My young trees were heavily loaded with ice last 

 winter, and some of them wrapped with twisted straw, and had they not 

 been staked, under the force of the heavy winds, they must have been ruined. 

 I will here say that my Russian apricots and Lombard plums, came through 

 the winter finely in their twisted straw jackets. They had also a mound 

 of long manure around them, to keep in the frost late, to prevent early flow 



