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THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
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Fig. 2. 
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fruit-bearing tree. Moderate growth, abundance of surface roots, and well-ripened -wood, are the desi- 
derata to be aimed at with fruit trees ; and root pruning should be commenced in the nursery, and 
carried on with discretion during the whole course of their existence. 
Autumn, early autumn, is the best period for pruning the roots ; as soon as the " sear and yellow 
leaf" appears, it may commence. It is important that the jagged and 
ragged cuts made by the spade should be smoothed by the knife, and we 
would carefully remove the soil from the roots, selecting only the strongest 
for operation. Root- pruning is certainly one of the first principles 
in the successful culture of fruit trees. Its importance is obvious when 
we consider the reciprocal action which exists between roots and 
branches, and the control which it gives over the energies of the subject 
so treated. Although it has not been genera] amongst English gar- 
deners till latterly, it has long been so among the Dutch. It is not 
difficult to conceive what would have been the fate of such a thing as 
that of pruning the roots of plants half a century ago. With what 
zealous indignation would the gardening worthies of that day have 
scouted the man who had the temerity to make such a suggestion, or to 
hint at such a horticultural heresy ? " Necessity" is said to be " the 
mother of invention," and our onward progress in this, as in all other 
arts which minister to the comfort and luxury of mankind, will be in 
proportion to the increased demand which will arise as we progress in 
education and refinement. Let us discard prejudice, and believe nothing 
impossible. 
PRUNING THE BRANCHES OF FOREST TREES FOR TIMBER AND 
PICTURESQUE EFFECT. 
Among the various modes of pruning which have had their advocates 
in the gardening periodicals, I am not aware that any distinction has 
ever been made between those whose object is simply to produce useful 
timber, and those whose aim is to produce objects of picturesque beauty. 
The treatment of such trees is but too generally confided to ignorant 
workmen, who believe that the nearer approximation trees make to 
scaffold poles, the greater is their beauty and perfection. But the dis- 
criminating manager will make this difference between the marginal 
and interior trees, that, while he prunes and fore-shortens the latter to 
throw all their energies into one trunk, he will only seek to obtain in 
the former a certain height of clear stem, leaving the head to diverge 
and ramify according to its natural habit. 
The pi'uning of forest trees, as commonly practised, is what we con- 
sider more properly a mutilation, generally performed in a rough and 
9-3. 
slovenly manner, by chopping off with a bill branches of considerable size. "We protest against the use 
of this instrument, and recommend, and believe, that all the pruning which timber trees require may 
