194 TRANSPLANTING. 



supplies ; yet if this demand be made when the roots 

 are in no condition to meet it, the consequence is a 

 very feeble expansion of both leaves and shoots, 

 evincing a general debility of the whole system. 

 Those, therefore, who believe that these are the cir- 

 cumstances of a newly transplanted tree, advise the 

 pruning down the last year's shoots that were pro- 

 duced by fibres now torn and useless, and which will 

 not only lessen a demand that cannot be answered, 

 but ensure the production of a new set of organs, viz. 

 new roots and shoots, to come into play, and which 

 will assuredly progress together with greater vigour. 

 Those who hold the opinion, that depriving a tree 

 of any portion of its foliage is an injury, and that 

 therefore cutting it in the second year is preferable to 

 pruning it in the first, appear to argue inconsistently : 

 because if pruning be detrimental in the first year, so 

 must it also be in the second. Still we know many 

 excellent practitioners in the market gardens about 

 London (and none do better than they) in managing 

 their newly transplanted standard fruit trees, defer 

 pruning down until the second year ; and even not 

 then unless the weakly state of the tree renders 

 pruning necessary. And their reasons are these : 

 a tree whose root has been established for twelve 

 months, shoots with greater vigour after pruning, 

 than a newly planted one : and should the trees take 

 well to their new stations, which they seldom fail to 

 do in such rich and highly cultivated ground, pruning 



