142 THE ORCHARD. " [Feb.. 
On Root-pruning. 
When a tree has stood so long that the leading roots have enter- 
ed into the under strata, they are apt to draw a crude fluid, which 
the organs of the most delicate fruit trees cannot convert into such 
balsamic juices as to produce fine fruit. To prevent this evil, as 
soon as a valuable tree begins to show a sickly pinkiness upon the 
leaves, or the fruit inclining to ripeness before it has acquired its 
full growth, at the same time the bark becoming dry, hard, and 
disposed to crack, let the ground, as soon in the spring as the frost 
is out of it, be opened for three or four feet round the tree, and 
with a chisel cut close to the horizontal roots every one that you 
find in the least tending downward. Should there be any mouldy 
appearance or rottenness among the roots, cut such out effectually, 
and wash the others clean with a weak lye or soap suds. If the 
ground be wet place a few flat stones under the places where you 
cut off the descending roots, to prevent the young roots which may 
be produced again from about the cuts taking a perpendicular 
direction, and to give them a lateral inclination. 
As the roots invariably collect the sap from the extreme points, 
this cutting compels the horizontal ones to work and exert them- 
selves, and if there be any energy left, they will soon throw out 
fresh fibres, and thus collect a more congenial sap for the support 
of the tree and fruit. At the same time, in the filling in of the 
earth, add a quantity of good rotten manure, and cover the ground 
thinly over with the same, as far as the roots may be supposed to 
extend; wash the stem and branches with soap-suds, or if any 
worms are perceivable, with the mercurial or corrosive solution, 
and water the ground round the tree at intervals in very dry 
weather, till you perceive it pushing vigorously. 
There is not a more powerful agent for producing the canker and 
other disorders than these descending roots. Canker indeed may 
arise from an improper soil, a vitiated sap, animalculae, and the 
want of free circulation of the fluids: the last is often caused by in- 
judiciously shortening too many of the leading branches. The 
medication before recommended, will stop the progress of the evil 
on the parts to which it is applied; but the canker may again break 
out on the other parts of the same tree, and that arises very fre- 
quently from the roots striking into a cold and unfriendly soil. 
The fluids being once vitiated by any subterraneous cause, canker 
is not the only evil; insects are invited thereby to deposit their eggs 
in the bark, which in due time become crawling maggots; these 
feed on the sap of the trees, devouring the inner bark and rind as 
they proceed, until the period of their chrysalis; which having un- 
dergone, they take wing and fly off, and in their progress seldom 
fail to lay the foundation of similar mischief. 
From this may be inferred the necessity of making a judicious 
choice of proper ground for your fruit trees, and paying due atten- 
tion to their cultivation and health; for it is quite as presumable, if 
not more so, that the vitiated juices of the trees invite the worms, 
than that they are the original cause which produces it. 
When any of your fruit trees are growing extremely luxuriant, 
