68 THE MINIATUIUO FUUIT GARDEN. 



Btock, and are tlien excenciitly well adapted for small 

 gardens. I liavr, indeed, reason to think that a great 

 change iiijiy be brought about in suburban fruit eul- 

 ture by these bush trees. I have shown, in pp. 17 

 and IS, how bush pears on quince stocks may be cul- 

 tivated. Pears are, however, a luxury: apples and 

 plums ar« necessaries to the families of countless 

 thousands living near London. Apple bushes, always 

 very pretty and productive trees, may be planted 

 three feet apart, row from row, and three feet apart 

 in the rows. If two or three years old when planted, 

 they will begin to bear even the first season after 

 planting. They should be kept from the attacks of 

 the green aphis in summer by dressing the young 

 shoots with the quassia mixture, given in a nnte to p. 

 s'.), and fi"om the woolly aphis by (iishurst compound^ 

 mentioned in page 66. The principal feature in this 

 culture is summer piiK lung, which mu^t be regularly 

 attended to, from early in June till the end of August : 

 this is done bv pinching or cutting ofi" the end of 

 every shoot as soon as it has made five or six leaves, 

 leaving from three to four _fulf-si:rd ones. Some 

 varieties of the apple have their Icwes very tliiekly 

 phieed on the shoots ; with tlicm it is better not to 

 count tlie leaves, but to leave the t-ho(>ts from three 

 and a half to four inches in length. If the soil be 

 ricli, and the trees inclined to grow too vigorously, 

 tliey may be lenioved biennially, as reconimeiulod for 

 busli jiears, by digging a circular trench one foot trom 

 iho stcTn of the tree, and then introducing the spado 

 under its roots, heaving it up so as to detach tliem all 

 from the soil, and then filling in the cai-th dug from 



