HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 219 
in the shape of sound, healthy sprouts and branches, covered with leaf and 
fruit-bud, and consigned to the "wood-pile. 
It seems to me, sir, that these good neighbors of mine are trying an 
experiment to see how much injury they can inflict upon their trees, without 
destroying their lives. When the Inquisitors stretch a heretic upon the 
rack, they place a surgeon by his side, with his finger upon the pulse, to 
decide when the torture has been carried to the limits of human endurance. 
But not so with our tree-trimmers. They seem to think that there is no 
limit to the endurance of vegetable life. This subject has often been 
referred to in your paper, and the evil consequences of such a course have 
been frequently pointed out. But the fact that this practice still conti- 
nues, shows that not enough has yet been said. " Line upon line and pre- 
cept upon precept," seems to be the only way in which truth can be fixed in 
the public mind. If those who pursue this course will watch their trees 
carefully, and observe the efiects of their treatment for two or three years, 
I think they will be satisfied that it is not only useless, but highly injurious. 
When the trees are trimmed in March, April and May, as soon as the warm 
weather comes on, and the sap presses into and distends the sap vessels, and 
runs-^down and blackens and poisons the bark, and causes it to crack and 
separate from the underlying alburnum, and thus efiectually prevent the 
healing of the wound, gangrene and death of a portion of the wood neces- 
sarily follow. Where several such wounds are made in a tree, its whole 
constitution will soon become impaired. It ceases to grow, and in a few 
years droops and dies. 
Trees that are trimmed the least are generally found to be the most vigor- 
ous, and to develope the best formed and most beautiful heads. Now and 
then, a limb that is putting forth in an inconvenient direction, or in a direc- 
tion which will injure the symmetry of the head, should be taken away. A 
limb that is shooting out more vigorously than the rest, may be shortened, 
and when two limbs are chafing each other, one may be removed. Shoots 
that grow from the trunk, will generally die or cease to groAV, when nature 
has no further service for them to perform. The idea of cutting out the 
whole central portion of an apple tree, to let in the sun, is wholly erroneous. 
The tree is thus deprived of a large portion of its lungs, as well as of many 
of its best bearing branches. In our climate the fruit, so far from requiring 
the direct rays of the scorching sun in midsummer, requires to be protected 
from its rays by the foliage which nature has provided. The directions 
given in English books for the cultivation of fruit, are adapted to the moist 
and cloudy atmosphere of England. The attempt to apply them to the 
