Feb.] OF PRUNING, ETC. 19 
FEBRUARY. 
When the borders and various compartments were dug in 
the autumn, and compost, or a thin coating of well-decom- 
posed manure given, the advantage will now, in part, be ex- 
perienced. If the weather is open about the end of the 
month, the pruuing should be done with the utmost dis- 
patch, that all may be prepared for a general dressing next 
month, and let nothing be delayed which can now properly 
be accomplished, under the idea that there is time enough. 
OF PRUNING, ETC. 
Generally, about the end of the month, the very severe 
frosts are over, and when none need be apprehended that 
would materially injure hardy shrubs, they may be freely 
pruned, and the points cut of such shoots as may have been 
damaged by the winter. Most of shrubs require nothing 
more than to be thinned of straggling, irregular, and injured 
branches, or of suckers, that rise round the root, observing 
that they do not intermingle with each other. Never trim 
them up in a formal manner ; regular shearing of shrubs, 
and topiary work, have been expelled as unworthy a taste 
the least improved by reflections on beauty, simplicity, and 
grandeur of nature. 
In fact, the pruning of deciduous, hardy shrubs should be 
done in such a manner as not to be observable when the 
plants are covered with verdure. It may frequently be ob- 
served in flower-gardens, that roses and shrubs of every de- 
scription are indiscriminately cut with the shears, the Amor- 
phas, Viburnums, and Altheas sharing the same fate. 
Robinia^ Coluteas, Cytisus, Rhiis, Genistas, with several 
of the Viburnums, and many others, bear their flowers on 
the wood of last year, and, when thus sheared, afford no 
gratification in flowering. And those shrubs that thus flower 
on the shoots of last year are perhaps worse to keep in regu- 
lar order than those to which the knife can be freely applied ; 
but good management, while young, will insure handsome, 
free, flowering plants. 
