DISEASES AND INSECTS. 



43 



necessary, and plant a young tree in the place. A 

 cankered tree is not worth grafting. 



Sometimes the canker is on a limb \Yhich can be 

 entirely removed : cut it out cleanly and entirely, and 

 thin the tree so liberally generally as to leave no 

 branches or even twigs to rub and chafe each other. 

 If the tree be of a sluggish growth, it may be thoroughly 

 cut back, but this will not do with trees of luxuriant 

 growth, as their efforts to make more wood will increase 

 the evil. In their case lessen the richness of the soil by 

 mixing in less fertile earth, drift-sand, or something of 

 that kind, avoid the use of manure in the neighbour- 

 hood of the tree, and cut away some of the roots. The 

 golden pippin will bear plentiful pruning. 



Unless trees are very old and far gone, canker may 

 generally be got rid of by letting in plenty of air and 

 light, by necessary improvement of the soil, by heading in, 

 pruning, by cutting the tap-root, if it pierce downwards, 

 and last, not least, by scrubbing the bark of trunk and 

 branches as far as possible with soapsuds and urine, 

 and covering up all wounds with cow manure beaten up 

 with clay, to prevent the disease attacking them or 

 spreadiug. 



Old overgrown trees are often starved to death for 

 want of manure, their owners neglecting to calculate 

 how much large trees have to do with the nourishment 

 they draw from an area of earth, small in proportion to 

 their size. The quantity of manure to be given to fruit 

 trees with advantage is a question which practice, ex- 

 perience, and reflection only can determine, and the 

 circumstances of almost every tree may vary with 

 regard to it. The thing to avoid in giving manure is 

 the encouragement of a too rampant growth, at the 

 expense of fruit. The thing to avoid in withholding 

 it is starving the tree, by want of nourishment, into 

 premature decay, and the production of poor, immature 

 fruit, cracking instead of ripening. Moderately mulch- 

 ing large old trees, which are plentiful bearers, can 

 seldom do harm, and once in three years a little of 

 the surface-mould round them may be taken up iu 



