( (8 
the weather has been peculiarly seasonable with a 
heavy crop, vegetation will have commenced 
before the fruit is entirely reaped, or more pro¬ 
perly speaking, about the end of the crop. In 
this case no harm can result from an immediate 
application of the pruning knife ; the same course 
v/ould also be equally justifiable, when the 
jrields have given but an indifferent return, and are 
in no wise distressed. Taking an opposite 
view of the case, however, the subject appears 
to me to wear a totally different aspect. If the 
held has borne heavily, and appears distressed, 
presenting a mass of “white 5 ' and almost life¬ 
less wood, T should think an immediate pruning 
highly injurious, for it stands to reason that it 
would be compulsory in the pruner to cut away 
all the old wood, according to the strict rules of 
pruning, and the tree would as a consequence 
be left totally bare, and could not possibly give 
any return for two years at least. Now, had a 
small respite been afforded the field, till nature 
had somewhat revived and vegetation ensued, 
the pruner would be enabled to see wbat should 
really be taken out—some portion of the old 
wood would thus bo saved, which would give 
e, small return for the ensuing crop. A circum¬ 
stance of this nature came under my own per¬ 
sonal observation in the year 1840, when I was 
residing on a large Coffee property, the fields of 
which were situated high, just below the Blue 
Mountain Peak, and the result tended to confirm 
me in the opinion which I have here set forth. 
In that year, there was an brooding drought 
throughout the country in which the district of 
my location shared b• •: we were protected 
from its b*net«l • o fluent e hv .he heavy ni^itt 
