200 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December ]5. 
sion for a single manuring under this system, providing 
the staple of the soil was pretty good; such a body of 
nourishment would he created as would he an ample 
feeding and rooting medium. 
If 1 were a market gardener, and had a plot of land 
of proper staple, rather too stiff for ordinary market 
gardening, I would enter largely into the affair. I 
believe that our great markets are hut moderately 
supplied with this useful fruit, or that they are too dear 
to he withiu reach of the million, for whom, hy their 
very constitution, it would appear, they were in part in¬ 
tended. Mr. Loudon used to call the Apple “ the poor 
man’s fruit,” but I see no reason why we should permit 
the Apple alone to monopolise this title. Insome market 
grounds there are portions cooler than the rest, and such 
plots, on a steady incline, might be thus disposed in 
parallel lines without any cropping between, and it 
would he no very difficult matter to carry gutters 
between the rows, and occasionally irrigate, if a good 
source of water were at hand. Thjs carried out, it 
would be found that the blight in this fruit so prevalent 
would be almost unknown, and that the fruit would 
swell beyond all previous anticipation. 
R. Errington. 
PRUNING GENERALLY. 
Every shoot which is cut or stopped, every bud or 
leaf that is rubbed off, every wound or incision made in 
the bark, and “ operating” on the roots, may be implied 
and classed under this head, and any one may be a 
general pruner without understanding more about the 
nature of pruning than the man in the moon, who, as I 
was taught, was a wicked man indeed, and was hung 
up in the moon, with his axe over his shoulder, for 
cutting trees on the Sabbath-day, as a warning to all 
boys who might be tempted, by the evil spirit, to cut 
sticks, fishing-rods, or riding-whips, on the seventh day 
of the week. 
The effects produced by a general pruner may be good, 
or no good, as it happens; but the effects produced by 
pruning on principles are, and necessarily must be, as 
certain as these principles are permanent. If any of us 
prune with a view of doing harm to a plant, the effect 
will be as certain as the principle of evil is abroad in 
the world, and so on, with every specific principle; there¬ 
fore, it may do some good to write, now and then, to 
remind the world at large about the general and specific 
effects of pruning on right principles, if only to lessen 
the chances of doing harm by those who must prune 
away at something or other every year of their lives, 
whether they know the right way of pruning different 
plants or not. There is nothing done within the garden, 
in which a man, without practice, is more likely to be 
led astray by loose reading than in the doiDgs of the 
pruner; the very plan that will answer for one plant, 
and cause it to fruit or flower, or take to a particular 
form or shape, may hinder the next plant from flowering 
at all, and put it out of shape altogether; therefore, it is 
quite certain that the knowledge that would distinguish 
the difference between pruning this plant and that 
plant can never be known to all persons at the same 
time; and on that very account serving gardeners will 
never cease from the face of the earth, so that every 
book called “ Every man his own gardener," or doctor 
either, is just as much as to say, every man has a fool 
for his gardener, or his patient, and as long as such books 
are in the world we must battle on to keep down such 
foolishness. 
The different kinds of pruning are intended to pro¬ 
duce particular effects on the root of the plant. The 
food of plants is gathered by the roots, and sent up 
to the leaves, to be changed by them into a matter 
from which other leaves are made, as well as branches, 
flowers, fruit, wood, and all. Therefore, by pruning-off 
more or less of the leaves, branches, or roots, we have 
the power of regulating what they produce, and the 
regularity of the plant as well. This wonderful power 
should not be intrusted to any one who was likely to 
abuse it from not knowing the delicate process by 
which nature regulates the movements of the organs 
by which a plant is formed. The quantity and quality | 
of leaves, flowers, fruit, and timber, depend on the 
skill of the pruner fully as much as they do on the j 
action of the leaves and branches, and according to that 
skill the quantities and qualities are diminished or 
increased in the same ratio. 
If you w r ere asked to put the whole strength of a tree 
into three particular branches pointed out to you, what 
is more natural, in the absence of practical knowledge, 
than that you would prune off all the rest of the 
branches, as many people would do who ought to know 
better ? You heard in a lecture, or read in a book— 
perhaps from this very pen—that if so many brandies 
are cut off from a tree the sap that would be expended 
in feeding them would go to nourish the remaining 
branches. All that is right and proper; but your appli¬ 
cation of the principle, or rule, may be much worse for 
your tree than no application at all. Suppose that your 
tree has been looking badly for a long while, and that 
after digging round it the looks are no better, and the 
rotten manure makes it look worse still: it is, in fact, 
in soil which does not suit it, or the roots have suffered 
a violent check, or the bark has got what we call hide¬ 
bound, and the circulation is languid in consequence. 
Now, if you apply the favourite remedy for throwing 
the whole strength of the tree into two or three of the 
branches by cutting off the rest of the branches, the 
chances are that no strength will remain in it to be 
forced this or that way, because pruning cannot alter the 
nature of the soil, or increase the vigour of the roots, 
neither will it loosen the tightness of the bark. Accord¬ 
ing to my experience, the most confirmed errors among 
amateur pruners lies in this question; they put faith 
and great stress on a thing they do not understand, 
because some popular book or writer said that the thing 
is so good in a particular case, or in general cases. 
Quack doctors kill people, as sure as ever Dr. Hornbook 
did, by the same rule. A certain bolus cured a certain 
individual, or he cured of himself, in spite of it, and 
that bolus must be the “universal medicine” for all 
comers, until the last comer takes the man of pills to 
his long home without ceremony. No; all the pruning 
in the world will not cure a tree of any disease that is 
of the stint family, or, if it does, the tree was not so 
much stunted as it looked to be. 
The only sure and quickest remedy for a really stunted 
tree, be it Oak or Apple, old or young, is to head it 
down to near the ground, or graft, and to give it one 
more chance to renew its strength. Nevertheless, a 
young tree which appears to be stunted by the too much 
exposure of the situation, may, in fact, turn out in the 
end to be in better condition than one of the same age 
and kind that has been too much nursed, and is grown 
too fast in consequence: all the difference depends on 
the after-management. 
A fast man prefers r fast-growing tree to cover his 
walls, or, in its turn, to become so much of “ the walls 
of old England; ” but, unless he is a good pruner, his 
wall-trees soon get bare at the bottom by over strength, 
while the “ walls ” of England go to the bottom for 
want of proper strength; while the slow and sure gar¬ 
dener provides for the covering of all his allotted spaces 
as his trees advance; and the slow and easy forester, 
who is sure to “ ease her ” at the proper time, will cut 
down the stunted Oak to the surface of the ground 
when it is done with the nurse, and thus secures a sap¬ 
ling so full of sap, Irom so many roots, that it will 
