14 
out with a healthful growth, will send forth its timely blossoms, 
and its well set fruit to be nourished and ripened in their season, 
while the late fall growth followed as is usual, by a benumbed fee- 
bleness in spring will the more surely prove unfruitful. In culti- 
vating orchard grounds great care should be exercised to avoid 
maiming or barking the trees. To prevent this, I use a short sin- 
gle-tree, with the ends and hooks well wrapped with cloths or other 
soft covering. When using two horses, and while passing near the 
trees, I have a man or lively boy to hasten from tree to tree, and 
raise the single-tree and let it safely pass by. 
WHEN AND HOW TO PRUNE FRUIT TREES. 
A tree has ever been looked upon as a fit emblem of enduring 
life. Would that those who assume the responsibilities of training 
and trimming fruit trees at the present day, could be led to feel 
that they were dealing with things of life, not only, but with déve 
things, and shape their acts accordingly. Those familiar with bud- 
ding young seedlings, know very well that if they need any trim- 
ming, it must be done at the time, or but a few moments before 
the bud is inserted. If performed two or three hours beforehand, 
a reaction will have taken place in the usual quiet growth of the 
tree, and the bark will not so easily separate from the wood to re- 
ceive the bud. If trimmed a few days before the time of budding, 
the living action will be found again ascendant, and the budding 
can be performed with the same ease as if done before being effected 
by the maiming. And who does not know, that the proper time tor 
depletion, if unavoidable, is during the most vigorous and elastic life 
actions? This principle applied to trimming fruit trees, would put a 
stop to the severe practice of pruning them during the time of 
dormancy, and cause that work to be done when the entire tide of 
vitality and growth is at its highest ebb, and at its fullest flow. 
Our Eastern friends for many years in the past, have recommend- 
ed to trim in February and March, while the trees were in the 
dormant state, and just before they start into the new life of early 
spring. Now, however, their best writers unite in condemning 
that practice, and advise to prune during the growing season only. 
If in a comparatively damp climate their counsel is correct, how 
much more so, in our exceedingly dry and more exhausting atmos- 
phere? The chief objections to late fall, and early spring pruning, 
