of Fruit Trees in Kitchen-Gardens. 131 



into these inferior parts of the tree, to the production of young 

 wood, ay, and breast wood too, from where is the true sap con- 

 ducive to fructification to^be secreted ? Let any one, for instance, 

 select an apple or pear tree, growing in his garden as a rough 

 espalier or standard, with a succession of side shoots from the 

 lower part of the bole upwards ; in fact, as nearly resembling a 

 wall tree, in the position of its branches, as possible. Let him, 

 then, I say, continually divest one portion of the tree of all its 

 foreright shoots, as fast as they are produced, and leave the other 

 with all its breast wood on, and observe the difference. He will 

 soon find that the stripped part will almost cease to thicken, and, 

 in a short time, will not possess power sufficient to form a good 

 tuft of leaves on the embryo buds, as noticed in the early part 

 of this paper; and will eventually become what. practical men 

 term " hide bound." The only way to decoy the ascending sap 

 into the inferior branches, in the growing season, is, by stopping 

 the superior ones at a certain period of their growth, and leaving 

 the inferior ones with all their breast wood growing. In the rest 

 season, another way of effecting this is, by close pruning and 

 shortening all the heart of the tree, which, by my mode of ma- 

 nagement, is always full of young luxuriant wood, and which I 

 denominate " waste pipes." These waste pipes I not only en- 

 courage, but I stimulate the tree to make them by pruning. The 

 purpose to which I hold these shoots subservient is, by their 

 strong action, to cause the roots to make plenty of new fibres 

 every year (the action of the root and top being well known to 

 be reciprocal) ; which fibres, when in motion, are made, in the 

 ensuing spring, to serve the purpose of the inferior branches. I 

 speak now of such trees as I alluded to above. By pruning 

 these " waste pipes " tolerably close (as to the degree of which, 

 nothing but an intimate knowledge of the habits of the tree, and 

 the effect desired, can guide us), the new root, now beginning 

 to work, and which would have filled those shoots removed with 

 the ascending sap, is made, instead, to fill all the inferior branches 

 of the tree first; and, by the time that the trees have developed 

 a good strong tuft of healthy leaves on the embryo buds, the 

 waste pipes in the centre of the tree are getting to work, and 

 decoy that heavy fund of sap away, which, had it not vent in 

 this way, would have driven most of these buds into wood. 

 Another point of much importance is, carefully, and at all times, 

 to preserve a leading shoot at the extremities of all the branches. 

 Some soils are so happily constituted by nature, that fruit 

 trees on them will bear almost any kind of abuse ; and on such 

 soils very good crops of fruit are obtained, with a system of 

 digging and cropping underneath. This is the case, however, 

 with, perhaps, only one garden in twenty ; and I am quite con- 

 vinced, having paid the very closest attention to the subject for 



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