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only 26 in. deep, 8 in. of which were filled with stones, such as 
could he most readily procured in the neighbourhood, and the 
remaining 18 with tlie mould whicli composed the old border. 
By this scanty supply of earth for the roots of these plants I 
have succeeded in obtaining a fruitful and healthy growth, 
enually remote from debility and luxuriance ; and by this 
simple process I procure fruit all over the tree, as regularly as 
if it had been mechanically placed, both plentifully up the 
main stem, and on the lowest horizontal branches. My trees 
are fim-trained in the best manner ; the shoots are kept as uni- 
form and straight as the plications of the instrument from 
whence the term is derived, and, when the fruit is full grown 
exhibit one ol the most interesting scenes to be met with within 
the confines of a garden. 
With regard to pruning, the knife should be used as spar- 
ingly as possible ; I conceive it to be as injurious to this tribe 
of fruit-trees, as the lancet is to animal life ; it creates those 
inconveniences which it is employed to remove : whoever in- 
dulges in its free use, most certainly defeats his own purpose. 
Let any man who is inclined to dissent from this opinion, con- 
sider the common thorn confined in a hedge, where it annually 
undergoes the operation of clipping, and the shrub in its primi- 
tive growth, and he will want no argument to convince him ot 
the impropriety of the practice. But my plants require very 
little assistance from the knife : they make no breast-wood, the 
energies of the tree being chiefly engaged in forming blossom- 
buds for the future crop. 
It may be justly inferred, from what is here stated, that the 
bad success which most gardeners have experienced in the cul- 
tivation of this valuable fruit, arises principally from the luxu- 
riant state of their trees ; the limited space which they occupy 
on the wall is so disproportionate to their natural grow th, that 
it is almost impossible, with deep and highly manured borders 
to reclaim them from a habit of plethorical sterility. The farina 
and the whole fructification, partake of this unhealthy condition ; 
and it may be observed, that fruits fecundated with bad pollen 
scarcely ever resist the atmospheric changes which they after- 
wards encounter. From observations made in vegetable phy- 
siology, I am persuaded that the tree is j)rincipally the produce 
of the earth, and the fruit of the atmosphere; a great diminu- 
