710 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
winter, but use nothing but the cultivator during the summer. If you 
want to retain moisture, stir the land often and stir it deeply, but don’t 
turn it over, and this will prevent the loss of moisture by surface 
evaporation to a very great extent. 
Use improved implements of cultivation. In these days of keen 
competition, hand labour is altogether out of the question, as it will 
not pay to do anything by hand that can be done cheaper and better 
by horse labour. 
The ploughing in winter is best done by one, two, three, or four 
furrow digging ploughs of the Avery, Oliver, or John Deere type, as 
they are the easiest to handle, and do the best work ; and the summer 
cultivation should be done by one or two horse cultivators ; the latter 
for preference, as they do the work cheaper and better. 
Never allow the land to become caked after a rain in summer; 
always run the cultivator over the ground as soon as it will carry the 
horses, and the greater portion of the rain that has fallen will thus be 
conserved for the trees’ use which would otherwise be lost, as surface 
evaporation takes place very rapidly in warm weather when there is an 
unbroken crust on the land. 
In order to grow good fruit it is also necessary that the trees 
shall be properly pruned, not only that the tree may be made to grow 
symmetrically, and to produce the bulk of its crop along the main 
branches instead of at the extremities of the limbs, hut also so that 
the tree shall not be allowed to hear more fruit than it can bring to 
perfection. Though the number of fruit on a tree can be greatly 
reduced by judicious winter pruning, it is often necessary, especially 
in the case of stone fruits, to thin heavily, as small stone fruits are 
generally of very little value, and, in addition to being almost unsale- 
able, when allowed to remain on the trees in large quantities they 
are a very severe strain on the trees’ energy, as every stone contains 
the germ of a young tree, to form which takes much more out of the 
tree and soil than growing a heavy crop of large, fleshy fruit, IV hen 
trees are shy bearers, summer pruning and root pruning will cause 
the formation of fruit-hearing wood. Winter pruning forms wood; 
summer pruning forms fruit. 
Always head your trees low. The advantages of low r heading are: 
Protection of trunk and main branches from sunburn ; ease ingather- 
ing the fruit; less liability to damage by heavy winds; increased 
facilities for using the horse in cultivation, and ease in pruning, 
spraying; &c. ^ 
Head low, giving the main limbs an upward and slightly outward 
growth, but not spreading till they are out of the reach of the horse. 
Trees thus pruned are stronger, and able to carry more fruit than 
unpruned trees, as the weight of the fruit is borne directly on the 
main branches, the strain being nearly vertical, and with improved 
implements the ground can be cultivated by horse labour right up to 
the trunk of the tree without any danger of injuring the branches ot 
the tree. 
When the branches of the tree are allowed to spread too much, 
the weight of the fruit teuds to break off the limbs or split the tree, 
but this is by no means all the damage, as the head of the tiee is 
opened up and exposed to the direct rays of the sun, which scald an 
