312 Root-Pruning and Canker in Fruit Trees. 



or stirring the border preparatory to cropping. These opera- 

 tions necessarily disturb and lacerate the rootlets, thereby acting 

 as a most injudicious pruning, whereby the already too numerous 

 spongioles are incalculably increased, and drawn into a position, 

 and amongst materials, certain of aggravating this tendency to 

 excess. The only benefit, then, conferred by non-cropping pro- 

 ceeds from the mass containing the roots being less available, 

 the supply of food consequently limited; the benefit, if any, pro- 

 ceeding from starvation, an end that maybe gained by far prefer- 

 able means : but, until we know a little more of the matter, crop, 

 in mercy to the fettered ti'ees, crop the borders, in order that a 

 few, at least, of the crudities that abound in the otherwise stag- 

 nant mass may happily escape without being filtered through thein. 

 If a plant, in order to remain healthy, requires a nice propor- 

 tion between its roots and branches, this will be best maintained 

 when left to nature, when it may be supposed that they progress 

 in exact ratio ; but when so placed that a greater part of the 

 leaves and branches are of necessity removed, the equilibrium is 

 evidently destroyed, and disease ensues ; to prevent which the 

 very obvious remedy is to maintain, or rather restore, artificially 

 what has been destroyed by art, to reduce the roots as system- 

 atically as the branches, in fact, to set in earnest about " root- 

 pruning." This said root-pruning has (as already stated) made 

 considerable stir lately, and made an effort to assume a position 

 adequate to its deserts, while the only anxiety gardeners may be 

 expected to feel in its progress seems confined to ascertaining 

 the exact time of its birth; as they have spared no pains to 

 assure the world that it is as old as the hills, and that gardeners 

 knew all about the matter a century ago. Now, with all due 

 deference, I think this had better rested in the background, 

 upon the principle that ignorance is less culpable than to know 

 and not practise. But no matter when or by whom introduced, 

 it never till now assumed a properly defined form, and if occa- 

 sionally practised, it was without any specific aim ; a sort of 

 random mutilation, applied hap-hazard. To correct this, and 

 give it an importance that cannot now be lost sight of, is at least 

 due to those that have recently brought it so prominently for- 

 ward. The cause of canker in trees is involved in an obscurity 

 that has hitherto defied all means of penetration ; and the sur- 

 mise of its proceeding from over-rooting, by the roots being left 

 untouched and encouraged, while the top is so mercilessly muti- 

 lated, may not even be one of the remotest causes producing so 

 disastrous an effect. But, whatever the cause, it is surely some- 

 thing, until that may be ascertained, to provide a remedy ; and 

 that root-pruning is such is more than mere surmise, as it is 

 demonstrated by the history of almost every tree that has been 

 moved or had its roots interfered with, with a view to render it 



