256 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ November, 
glorified, wreathed in beauty, laden with fruit, mellowed by-and-by into luscious 
ripeness, by the energy and persistent force of proper roots at their post, that is, 
within easy range of the trunk or bole. 
Have the roots of your fruit trees wandered from home ? Have they been 
buried too deeply or travelled too widely ? Now—or rather last month—is the best 
time to bring them back. Unless the tree is very large, you may go down boldly 
within 6 ft. of its stem (if smaller, 3 ft. will do very well), and cut off every root you 
come to. An immense deal.of useless labour and trouble has been expended in the 
forking out and careful preservation of the roots of fruit trees. It is, nine times 
out of ten, sheer labour lost. It is worse, for such roots mostly die, and in dying 
they hinder the formation of new roots where they would have sprung forth 
had the old ones been cut off: therefore off with them at once. And when 
you have penetrated the mass of roots and gone underneath half the ball, 
cut the ends of all these roots clean off with a sharp knife, and fill up 
the vacant space with turfy maiden loam, rather heavy, and inclining to clay, for 
Pears and Cherries, and lighter for Apples. The newly cut roots will understand 
the meaning of this at once, they will break into the new stuff and abide there. 
If you are courageous and skilful at these surgical operations do both sides of 
the tree at once, but if otherwise, leave the other side until October, 1872, and 
then complete the process. But if trees have been properly managed, that 
is, educated into fibrous-rootedness, there is no risk of danger to life or 
health in such imperative orders to keep at home, being given by the knife. 
On the contrary, the trees soon get used to it, and seem, judging by results, 
to like it. 
The roots of all fruit-trees may be thus kept at home. A few weeks since, I 
found an eminent vine-grower operating thus upon his vines, which had just been 
root-pruned ; others had been manipulated a few weeks before. Going to the 
latter and lifting up some of the sliced turf, thin and fibry, that hugged the ends 
of the cut roots, I found myriads of white spongioles, rushing into this new 
larder. These vines were starting for an early crop, and were already laying down 
the foundations of fine luscious grapes for next April, in those grand, vigorous 
roots, so freely rushing off into the fresh loam the previous September. These 
early roots gave a lesson to us that nothing else could teach so authoritatively, 
in regard to the best time for keeping roots at home. That time is not the 
dead season. Indeed, there is no such season among roots, unless the frost com¬ 
pels a cessation of growth. But the right time for forcing roots back nearly 
home by the knife is early in the autumn, say the beginning of October, when 
much of the energy of the trees seems falling back rootwards. Cut the roots then, 
and they heal rapidly, and break with despatch. Keep the frost off, and all through 
the winter new roots will be forming. And thus, when the tug of trial comes, 
in the spring or summer, and expanding blossoms, embryo fruit, and growing leaves, 
all cry to the roots, u Give, give!” the latter will be equal to the demand made 
