156 



FRUITS. 



[chap. 



rule is that all stone fruits do better budded than grafted. That 

 they are, when budded, less given to gum, a disease peculiar to 

 stone fruits, and often very pernicious to them. You may also, by 

 budding, put two or more bi anches upon a stock that would be too 

 weak to take so many grafts ; and you may bud in July when 

 grafting has failed in March and April. The disadvantage of 

 budding is that the trees are rendered one year later in coming 

 into bearing than when you graft. 



220. PLANTING. — Under the heads of the several trees in the 

 list which will follow hereafter, directions will be given with regard 

 to the age, the size, and other circumstances which will be found 

 to vary according to the several purposes and situations for which 

 the trees are intended. I shall here, therefore, confine myself 

 merely to the act of planting ; that is to say, the manner of re- 

 moving a young tree from one spot and placing it in another ; the 

 rules here being applicable to all trees. The first thing to be 

 observed is that, though trees will grow if kept out of the ground 

 for a considerable time, they ought to be kept in that state as short 

 a time as possible, and, during even that short time, the roots 

 ought to be exposed as little as possible to the sun and wind. The 

 taking up of a young tree ought to be performed with the greatest 

 possible care, especially if it have stood in the place whence 

 it is taken for more than one year. And here let me stop for a 

 minute in order to re-impress upon the mind of the reader the 

 importance of the observation which I made in paragraph 206. 

 After having read that paragraph again, the reader wid please to 

 observe that all long roots must be pruned off to within at most 

 four or five inches of the stem of the tree ; and that, if the tree 

 have stood too long in its place before its final removal, this loss 

 of root will render it absolutely necessary to cut off the upper part 

 of the tree very near to the ground ; and, even after that, will make 

 it very slow to re-enter upon vigorous growth. If, therefore, you 

 be not ready for the transplanting of your trees, at the time when 

 they might be transplanted, rather than let them stand to get these 

 long roots, take them up in the fall of the year, give the roots and 

 heads a pruning, and plant them again, so that you may not 

 experience the great check at the final transplanting. 



221. I return now to the taking up of the tree, which ought to 

 be done without tearing any of the roots, and which is not done 

 vsithout such tearing one time out of twenty. You ought to dig 



