Pruning, fyc< 561 



weak underling branches ; and this is called natural pruninc : 

 but the skilful pruner assists nature ; he does not wait till the 

 branches are dead, any more than the skilful vine-grower 

 waits till the berries are dead before he thins the bunches 

 of grapes, &c. If fine clear timber is as desirable as fine 

 flowers and fruits are, then pruning and thinning are necessary 

 operations. It is natural that a tree should have leaves ; and 

 it is natural that a sheep should have wool : the former 

 protects its parent from the scorching summer sun, and the 

 latter from the winter storms ; they both assist in carrying 

 off superabundant sap, and yet may you deprive the sheep 

 of its fleece in the middle of winter, or a tree of all its leaves 

 in the middle of summer, if artificial means are used to pro- 

 tect the sheep from catching cold, and the tree from being 

 blistered by the sun. 



I have said that the branches are merely the offspring of 

 the tree, and I add that they draw up sap only to enrich 

 themselves. This can be proved by looking at an apple tree 

 grafted upon a crab, or the weeping ash grafted on the com- 

 mon ash : they are complete bloodsuckers. I have seen 

 a weeping ash, not quite so large as an Egyptian pyramid, but 

 getting on that way like ; while its foster-mother was not fit 

 for a ladder-pole : and I have seen a common ash, planted at 

 the same time, with a top that barely makes room for three 

 rooks' nests, yet with a trunk fit for sawing into eleven-inch 

 planks. When a less succulent graft is introduced into a 

 more succulent stock, the case is reversed, the stock over- 

 grows the graft, and kills it in a few years; on the same 

 principle that trees kill their own offspring, in the way called 

 natural pruning: witness the cytisus budded on the laburnum, 

 and a thousand other examples. 



I believe this system of physiology will be new to most of 

 your readers ; but it is the true system for all that. It is a 

 reform in the old system ; and, like the brave Earl Grey, " I 

 will either stand or fall by the bill." I shall not, however, 

 go the length of some, to cry " the whole bill, and nothino- 

 but the bill:" it must be mended in a committee of practical 

 men, who know at what time to shear a sheep, and when to 

 prune a tree ; and not by " ignorant and self-sufficient 

 baronets," who read books, and write books, and yet do not 

 know how to prune a currant bush. Malheur d vous, con- 

 ducteurs aveugles ! My sheet is filled up, and, of course, my 

 article, as you call it, is long enough ; but I shall come to the 

 scratch again, if I receive another call, and now remain, 



Yours, in good troth, 

 Heath House, April, 1832. John Howden. 



Vol. VIII. — No. 40. oo 



