CHAPTER XVI. 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS, 
Trees Grrptep By Fiero Mice—How to Save 
Tumm.—The obstacles with which the practical hor- 
ticulturist has to contend are numerous. If he 
wishes his orchards to produce paying crops of fruit, 
he must be constantly on the alert, bestowing care 
on this or that tree, removing a branch from another, 
using the pruning knife for some special object, 
either to retard or encourage growth in a certain 
direction. The labor is not at all times arduous, but 
constant watchfulness is required, and sound knowl- 
edge of the business, before the’thousand and one 
annoyances that are constantly occurring can be 
overcome. 
No experience of the horticulturist is so dismal 
or discouraging as when, entering his orchard soon 
after snow disappears in the spring, he finds that his 
trees are badly injured—many fatally so—by the 
ravages of those abominable pests, the field mice. 
The winters of 1867 and 1868 were the most 
severe, and, in many respects, the most remarkable, 
