46 THE ORCHARD. [Jan. 
But the misfortune is, that too frequently after orchards are 
planted and fenced, they have seldom any more care bestowed 
upon them. Boughs are suffered to hang dangling to the ground, 
their heads are so loaded with wood as to be almost impervious to 
sun and air, and they are left to be exhausted by moss and injured 
by cattle, &c. 
By a redundancy of wood the roots are exhausted unprofitably, 
the bearing wood is robbed of part of its sustenance, and the natural 
life of the tree unnecessarily shortened, whilst the superfluous wood 
endangers the tree by giving the winds an additional power over it, 
and is injurious to the bearing wood by retaining the damps and 
preventing a due circulation of air. 
The outer branches only are able to produce fruit properlyj every 
inner and underling branch ought therefore to be removed. It is 
common to see fruit trees with two or three tiers of boughs pressing 
so hard upon one another, with their twigs so intimately interwoven, 
that a small bird can scarcely creep in among them. Trees thus 
neglected acquire, from want of due ventillation, a stinted habit, 
and the fruit becomes of a crude inferior quality. 
The trees are very often almost entirely subdued by moss, which 
kills many, and injures others so much that they are only an incum- 
brance to the ground and a disgrace to the country. This evil 
may easily be checked by scraping and rubbing oft' the moss at 
this season of the year, with a rounded iron scraper, &c., when 
men have little else to employ them, and only seek work in 
idle, expensive, and unprofitable amusements. Draining the land, 
if too retentive of moisture, will sometimes prevent or cure moss, 
or digging round the trees on the appi'oach of winter, or in spring, 
and bringing fresh mould, or the scouring of ponds and roads, or 
the rubbish of old walls, well prepared and pulverized, and laid 
round them. Whatever contributes to the health of the tree, will 
cure, or in some degree mitigate, this and other diseases. 
The above considerations ought to induce to an examination of 
your standard apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, &c., and where 
found necessary, to thin their branches, scrape and rub oft' moss, 
cut oft" all dead or irregularly placed limbs and branches, and also 
any luxuriant unfruitful shoots, and such branches as appear to be 
in a decaying or cankery state, all of which must be cut oft' close 
to where they were produced, or to some healthy leading branch 
or shoot;/or the bark cannot grow over a stump, because there is no 
power to draw the sap that way, for which reason always cut rather 
a little within the wood. 
Smooth the cut parts, and if the amputations are large, apply 
thereto a light covering of the medicated tar below mentioned, 
which is to be laid on with a painting brush; if under an inch in 
diameter, it is scarcely worth while to go to that trouble, for such, 
when well pruned, will heal and cover freely. 
Be particular to use a saw in taking offall tlielimbs and branches 
that are too large for the knife, and smooth the cut parts with either 
your pruning knife or a neat draw-knife, which answers better for 
large amputations. 
