148 
PRUNING WALL TREES. 
likely to have between the period of the first setting and its full 
growth. The notion that sun-light is necessary to the growth of 
such fruits seems to require modifying, and it is now quite evi¬ 
dent to me, that we may err equally on one side as the other. I 
must not be understood as opposed to judicious thinning even 
before midsummer; it must ever be better to take away the super¬ 
fluous shoots while yet small, than to leave them to rob the other 
portions of the tree, merely to be cut away when larger; that 
which appears to me the best course, in the event of such a 
spring as that we have just passed through, will be to remove 
such growths as are not likely to be wanted in the ultimate 
arrangement of the tree, in a gradual manner, going over them 
at three or four different times, so that no appreciable alteration 
may be made in the amount of shade, and for the future I do 
not intend to begin nailing in the branches till the end of June. 
It is possible to conceive situations over which the wind sweeps 
with a violence that would be destructive to the new wood, if 
left so long as just proposed ; but where the trees are sheltered, 
I am convinced the shade afforded by the spreading shoots is of 
great assistance to the fruit, hastening its development, and up 
till the time the ripening process commences, most essential in 
attaining the superior size so much desired. The worst cases of 
“ burning” that came under my notice, was where the trees are 
growing on a poor, gravelly soil, making in the best seasons but 
very weakly shoots, and this year, from want of moisture, scarce 
any wood at all; a great quantity of fruit is annually produced 
by these trees, as may be expected from the thorough ripening 
they get on their well-drained borders, though but little of it 
ever attains a respectable size, and this season it was really 
pitiable to see nearly the whole crop mottled with the white 
blister-spots before described; while in other places, where the 
trees stand in moist alluvial soil, and make an abundance of large 
foliage," very few cases occur : this is convincing that shade is 
necessary, and on the hint thus derived from Nature’s own book, 
I intend in other seasons to proceed. 
Hortulanus. 
[Besides the accidental injury resulting to fruit from the ab¬ 
sence of foliage, mentioned by our correspondent above, we 
