Nun] 



THE FRUIT GARDEN. 



365 



has been a consideration of the horticulturist for above a liun- 

 dred and fifty years. The celebrated Evelyn recommended 

 the system of laying bare the roots ; this certainly will, in 

 some measure, produce the desired effect, but at the same time 

 may be productive of a worse, namely, the death of the tree. 

 Nature has never directed the exposure of the roots, but stu- 

 diously hides them from sight ; but every one must have ob- 

 served, that trees partially blown over, or with the earth re- 

 moved from their roots, or the roots mutilated by digging too 

 closely to them, or with their trunks or roots broken or beaten, 

 or otherwise mutilated, are always more fruitful than othei*s ; 

 and this, no doubt, first suggested the idea of artificial mutila- 

 tion. Mutilation, both in plants and animals, is attended by 

 a SQxt of maturity, and maturity, in all living things, is the 

 period of reproduction. Nature, in all cases, when she begins 

 to feel the effects of decay, generally makes a grand effort to 

 reproduce its species. 



Certain operations may, however, be performed, and which 

 may justly be called the system of pruning the roots, in order 

 to correct irregularities, and induce the stronger and almost 

 naked roots to throw out a greater number of fibres, wherewith 

 to collect a sufficient supply of nourishment, as well as by 

 shortening the stronger and tap-roots from penetrating too far 

 in search of food, and keeping up, as it were, a just propor- 

 tion of roots to the branches of the tree. The branches are 

 shortened to produce more fruitful shoots, and the stronger 

 roots shouhl be shortened, to cause a supply of fibrous roots 

 to push for collecting food to nourish them. Strong naked 

 roots collect no nourishment, but serve the no less important 

 office of conveying that nourishment collected by the fibres to 

 the stem of the tree, by which it is conducted to the larger 

 branches, which, in their turn, convey it to the smaller, and 

 they to the extremities of the buds and leaves. Transplanting 

 trees frequently, as we have already advised, produces this 

 effect, while it answers a no less important one, namely, that 

 of removing the tree into fresh food, and is of all methods the 

 most rational. Boring a hole in the stem of the tree, and 

 driving in an oaken plug, is spoken of by Van Osten as boing 

 practised in his time. Cutting notches in the stem and branches 



