326 ' WESTERN FRUIT BOOK. 



A frequent examination of their condition should be made 

 during the growing season, and with good judgment and 

 small sacrifice of wood, great good Inay be effected. This 

 should consist in stopping rambling or rampant shoots, 

 either by pinching their buds with the thumb and finger, 

 or cutting them back with the knife ; here, however, is 

 the point to exercise great judgment. In branching the 

 tree it should be an object, from the first, to divide the 

 head among more than two main limbs, since the division 

 into only two is more apt to be followed by injury from 

 splitting in after years, from the weight of the fruit and 

 foliage, than when the strain is more divided. 



SELECTION OF TKEES PROM THE NURSERY. 



E. J. Hooper. — Dear Sir : — ^At your request, I sit down 

 this evening to address a few remarks to the readers of 

 your valuable work on fruits, upon the selection of trees 

 from the nursery. (See Appendix, 100.) 



At different periods, and in different places, I have ad- 

 dressed nurserymen upon a similar topic ; not exactly the 

 same, biit similar, that is, upon the proper mode of grow- 

 ing trees for sale. These addresses have been received, 

 with different degrees of favor and disfavor ; the nursery- 

 men sometimes admitting the truth of the remarks offered, 

 but asserting that purchasers desired to buy their trees 

 hj the foot in height, and not by the inch in diameter. This 

 being too much the case with planters, as you are very 

 well aware, the attempt is now made to reach them, the 

 buyers ; as we may be well assured, that the intelligent 

 nurserymen of our country, very well knowing the true 

 philosophy of the matter, will gladly supply the public 

 with a better article, if that public can be made suffl- 



