X INTEODUCTION 



Wken I came to a thinking age, I becarae anxious to 

 know why those refuse trees never made strong vigorous 

 shoots, like those growing in their own immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, and yet nearly always bore good crops of fruit. 

 Many years elapsed before I saw 'the reason .why,' and 

 long afterwards I was advised by a friend, a P.H.S., to 

 write a crude, short paper on the subject, and send it to 

 be read at a meeting of the Horticultural Society : this 

 paper is published in their 'Transactions.' I had then 

 practised it several years ; so that I may now claim a 

 little attention, if the old adage that ' practice makes per- 

 fect ' be worthy of notice. 



This little work is not designed for the gardens and 

 gardeners of the wealthy and great, but for those who take 

 a personal interest in fruit-tree culture, and who look on 

 their garden as a never-failing source of amusement. In 

 some few favoured districts, fruit trees, without any extra 

 care in planting and after-management, will bear good 

 crops, and remain healthy for many years. It is not so in 

 gardens with unfavourable soils : and they are greatly in 

 the majority. It is to those possessing such, and more 

 particularly to the possessors of small gardens, that the 

 directions here given may prove of value. The object 

 constantly had in view is to make fruit trees healthy and 

 fruitful, by keeping their roots near the surface. The root- 

 pruning and biennial or occasional removal, so earnestly 

 recommended, are the proper means to bring about these 

 results, as they place the roots within the influence of the 

 sun and air. The ground over the roots of garden trees as 

 ' generally cultivated is dug once or twice a year, so that 

 every surface-fibre is destroyed and the larger roots driven 

 downwards ; they, consequently, imbibe crude, watery sap, 

 which leads to much apparent luxuriance in the trees. 

 This, in the end, is fatal to their well-doing, for the 

 vigorous shoots made annually are seldom or never ripened 



