OF PRUNING. 251 



flowers and fruit. In these cases the excessive vigour 

 is at once stopped by removal of some of the stronger 

 roots, and consequently of a part of the superfluous 

 food to which their " rankness" is owing. The opera- 

 tion has been successfully performed on the wall trees 

 at Oulton, by Mr. Errington, one of our best English 

 gardeners, and by many others, and, I believe, has 

 never proved an objectionable practice under judi- 

 cious management. Its effect is, pro tanto, to cut off 

 the supply of food, and thus to arrest the rapid 

 growth of the branches ; and the connexion between 

 this and the production of fruit has already been ex- 

 plained (85). It is by pushing the root-pruning to 

 excess that the Chinese obtain the curious dwarf trees 

 which excite so much curiosity in Europe. Mr. 

 Livingston's account of their practice is so instructive, 

 and contains so much that an intelligent gardener 

 may turn to account, that I think it worth repeating 

 here. 



" When the dwarfing process is intended, the 

 branch which had pushed radicles into the surround- 

 ing composition in sufficient abundance, and for a 

 sufficient length of time, is separated from the -tree, 

 and planted in a shallow earthenware flower-pot, of 

 an oblong square shape ; it is sometimes made to rest 

 upon a flat stone. The pot is then filled with small 

 pieces of alluvial clay, which, in the neighbourhood 

 of Canton, is broken into bits, of about the size of 

 common beans, being just sufficient to supply the 

 scanty nourishment which the particular nature of the 

 tree and the process require. In addition to a careful 



