28 
THE FRUIT CULTIVATOR. 
sheltered situation, covering the surface over the pots with an inch 
or two of exhausted nmlchy dung, to keep the roots safe from the 
changes of the weather. Here they may remain twelve months. 
In the second spring (supposing them to be potted in the early part 
of the first year), when the buds begin to swell, they should be pruned, 
reducing weak shodts to half their length, and strong shoots one-third. 
After they begin to grow, the trees will require due supplies of water; 
and as the roots are in a sort of prison, the water given them should 
be rich. To make this manured water, mix it with one-third of its 
quantity of the brown drainage from dunghills, or what may be found 
in farmyards; or, if such cannot be had, collect a bushel or two of 
horse-droppings, which put in a large tub, together with a handful 
or two of soot, fill up with water, and stir it frequently. In the course 
of a few hours it may be given to the pots once or twice in the week. 
It should not be allowed to become stale ; the fresher it is the better. 
This liquid the author has found more nutrtritive to potted trees than 
any thing else, and therefore can safely recommend it for every kind 
of fruit grown in pots. 
About Michaelmas following, the mulch should be removed; the 
pots taken up, and replunged; taking care not to injure the surface 
roots, for these are of the greatest service to the plants. In the fol¬ 
lowing spring little pruning will be necessary, only shortening some 
of the strongest shoots. In the course of the summer, flower-buds 
will be formed; and when this takes place, the trees are, at the pro¬ 
per season, fit to be taken into the cherry-house, or some such simi¬ 
lar place, where they can have abundance of moisture and moderate 
heat (say from 56 to 65 deg. of Fahrenheit;) for neither apples, 
plums, nor cherries, can bear violent forcing or dry heat. 
If such potted trees have been housed and borne fruit, it is well to 
remove them to the open air as soon after as possible; not put away, 
as is too often the case with such things, in any bye corner, but pro¬ 
perly plunged, mulched, and regularly watered, to recover their vigour, 
and ripen their buds for the next year. It is hardly necessary to 
add, that, where a succession of forced apples are required, a suf¬ 
ficient stock of potted plants must be kept for the purpose;, as a few 
such fruit plucked from the trees a month or two before they ripen 
naturally, are always regarded as a delicacy. 
Blight on Apple Trees —There is as much care and attention re¬ 
quired in keeping fruit trees in health, and free from attacks of in¬ 
sects and parasitical plants, as there is in propagating and transplant¬ 
ing them. Constitutional diseases should always be distinguished 
from the depredations of insects. Of these in their order; viz. 
