THE ORCHARD AND FRUIT GARDEN. 
379 
fruit. Let us hear what Mr. M'Intosh says 
on the subject : — 
" Few gardeners, we believe, will dispute 
the necessity of thinning the fruit on their 
peach and apricot trees, which they admit 
improves those that are left to come to matu- 
rity; but few, we will venture to say, if ever 
they even thought of it, have carried the thin- 
ning of their apples and pears to any useful 
extent. This is a branch of culture too much 
neglected. We all know that a tree will ripen 
and mature ten dozen of fruit much better 
than it can twice or thrice that number, and 
with much less exertion on its own part ; and 
also that the fruit will not only be larger, 
better flavoured, and in every way superior, 
but that the tree will be placed in a condition 
to produce a fair crop annually for many suc- 
cessive years : whereas, by the usual way of 
allowing the tree to produce as many as will 
remain on it till they become ripe, it is de- 
prived of that share of nourishment which 
Nature has designed to go to the formation of 
fruit buds for the succeeding crop ; and hence 
it is that we so frequently see a tree, or even 
a whole orchard, loaded with fruit one year, 
and the following bearing scarcely any at all. 
The proper season for thinning apples is just 
when the fruit is beginning to swell, and at 
this very period we see Nature doing what we 
ought to do for her, for at this time the trees 
generally, when overloaded, shed a great por- 
tion of their fruit, as if they were conscious 
of their inability to bring it all to perfection. 
In thinning apples, as well as other fruits, 
those should be removed that grow in shaded 
parts, or towards the middle of the tree, leav- 
ing the outside ones as enjoying the greatest 
portion of light and sun : not more than one 
fruit should be left on a spur, and indeed, if 
the fruit be from nine to twelve inches apart, 
the crop will be quite abundant enough. The 
choicer kinds of course demand attention in 
this respect ; the more common, so long as 
they do not injure the trees, may be left to 
their fate."— Pp. 67, 68. 
This is useful practical information, and 
there is no lack of it with regard to most fruits, 
although, to some of our readers, a good deal of 
it is familiar. Indeed, to do the author justice, 
he does not pretend to have written the book; 
for he says, at the very onset, sufficient to jus- 
tify him in making it all up of extracts ; and 
we must admit that it requires no small dis- 
cretion to build up a book of the incongruous 
materials supplied by the writers of other days. 
He says, truly enough : — 
" Upon no subject connected with Horticul- 
ture has more been written than upon the 
cultivation of fruit trees ; a fact to which the 
shelves of the author's library, in common with 
those of most other gardeners, bear ample 
testimony; 
" But, although cheerfully granting to his 
predecessors in this walk, their full meed of 
praise for the valuable materials laid open in 
their writings, from which the author has de- 
rived both pleasure and instruction, he cannot 
help lamenting that, with a very few excep- 
tions, one of the most important subjects in 
Pomology has been hitherto much neglected ; 
the nomenclature of the science has long been 
a disgrace to the Horticultural literature of 
our country. 
" Feeling this deficiency, he has been in- 
duced to compile the following little volume, 
on which he has expended much time and 
research, with the hope, in some measure, of 
applying to it a remedy." — P. iii. 
The greater portion of the work consists in 
accounts of good practice ; and this, when 
sifted from a mass of stuff which shakes our 
faith in an author, is highly useful ; and many 
of the old writers have contrived to give us a 
good deal of nonsense with what little is valu- 
able. Upon the subject of heading down pear- 
trees we have the author's own notions, forti- 
fied by the evidence of former writers : — 
" The pear-tree, under good management, 
and in a favourable soil, may be continued in 
health, vigour, and productiveness, for a 
greater length of time than any other fruit- 
bearing tree; and few pear-trees are either too 
old or too much neglected, providing the roots 
are healthy, but they may, by judicious ma- 
nagement, be brought again into a state of 
health and productiveness. Forsyth was the 
first who carried this practice into general use; 
for, finding that the old pear-trees in the Royal 
Garden at Kensington had become diseased, 
cankered, and almost barren, and reflecting 
that, had he planted young ones, it must have 
been twelve or fourteen years before he could 
have had a supply of fruit from them, he de- 
termined to try the following experiment upon 
his old trees : — ' I began,' says he, ' by cutting 
down four old and decayed pear-trees of dif- 
ferent kinds, near to the place where they had 
been grafted: this operation was performed 
on the 15th of May, 1786. Finding that they 
put forth fine shoots, I headed down four more 
on the 20th of June in the same year (for by 
this time the former had shoots of a foot long), 
which did equally well, and bore some fruit in 
the following year. One of the first four, 
that is, one of those headed down on the loth 
of May, produced nineteen fine large well- 
flavoured pears next year.' We are induced 
to make the above, and also the following 
quotation, in consequence of the late season of 
the year when the operation was performed, 
as well as to show the success of the principle 
of heading down, which, though at one period 
