SUBURBAN FRUIT-GROWiNG. 
387 
the rest. All lime and brick rubble should be saved. The ashes 
of rubbish heaps, soot, sweepings of the poultry yard, dovecote, 
and stable, refuse from the kitchen, weeds, and leaves should be 
collected and spread over the ground to be turned into the bottom 
of the trench, so as to be buried with the stale and exhausted 
soil from the surface. 
When the trenching is completed the surface should be 
heavily dressed with quicklime and be left rough for the winter. 
In the following spring a liberal dressing of quarter-inch bones or 
coarse bone meal should be lightly forked in and a green crop, 
say of tares, raised, which might with advantage be dug in to 
freshen and enrich the soil. The land would then be fit for 
planting with fruit trees in the following autumn. Stable litter— 
I will not call it manure—is of but little value except as a mulch 
in dry or frosty weather. This should be spread round the trees 
after planting, and when there is a good crop a surface dressing 
of any good manure, consisting mainly of phosphates and potash 
rather than nitrates, should be sown. The trees will require to 
be watered in dry hot weather, as the roots, if planted properly, 
are near the surface. 
I have tried planting maiden trees, but whether pruned the 
first year or the second I have never been able to make 
such good bushes or pyramids as those obtained from the 
nurseries under the description of “ Two-year-olds, with some 
fruit spurs.” 
With respect to pruning it has been humorously said that 
“ there are two sets of fools—those who prune too much and 
those who don’t prune at all.” I have found it better to be 
cautious in the use of the pruning-knife after the foundation 
of the tree has been laid, and to confine pruning to thinning out 
objectionable shoots rather than to shortening them back. 
Summer is to be preferred to winter pruning, as the wounds 
heal over more quickly and leave less opportunity to canker 
germs and American blight to effect a lodgment. 
Summer pinching has its uses, but bushes pinched into 
stunted growth can never be got out of it. I prefer a more 
natural system. 
Cordons. 
These succeed for a time, and some varieties of fruit give 
wonderfully fine specimens from them. This is especially 
