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and uncivilized, and to acquire improper habits, (aye habits,) as the 
child turned into the street to find its teachings there. 
In considering this subject then, I invite attention, first, to the culture 
of the ground. It were certainly much better if farmers could be in¬ 
duced to set aside one acre or two for their orchards solely ; it would pay 
them much better than to raise corn, oats, wheat, or timothy, amongst 
the trees. The orchard should be kept as clean of every other growth 
as the corn field; but as farmers can seldom be induced to do this, 
the question arises “what is the best crop to raise amongst young 
trees ?” I answer, that growth of crop which produces the smallest 
amount of solid woody matter in proportion to its foliage, and for the 
simple reason that the wood being formed of carbon, which is collected 
by both leaf and roots, and there being at all times a surplus of carbonic 
acid gas floating in the atmosphere, and often a deficiency of it in our 
soils, the crop should have sufficient leaf to take the little it requires from 
the atmosphere instead of from the earth. Now by this rule melons, 
pumpkins, squashes, or buck wheat, will do comparatively but little 
harm, whilst every kind of small grain is very bad. Indian corn is not 
a bad crop, unless the trees have commenced bearing, for whilst it pro¬ 
duces an immense amount of leaf, the stalk, though large, contains but 
little woody matter. Potatoes require but little carbon from the earth, 
and are therefore not a bad crop. All crops which prevent the frequent 
plowing and hoeing of the land should be kept out of the orchard, what¬ 
ever crop is raised, the orchard should be kept free from weeds, and the 
soil kept light and mellow ; and it will require an extra supply of carbon¬ 
iferous manure, proportioned to the amount of crop taken from it. 
As I shall advance some opinions on the subject of pruning, at variance 
with the teachings of the day, I must, before entering on it, call the 
reader’s attention to a principle in animated nature, which is equally ap¬ 
plicable to vegetable physiology. It is Avliat surgeons call “the shock of 
injury.” 
If a man receive a gun shot wound in almost any part, although it 
may produce but little pain, and the loss of scarcely a drop of blood, 
there is an immediate sinking of all the vital powers. Often a man dies 
in the hands of a surgeon amputating a limb, where neither the pain nor 
loss of blood were sufficient to produce the death—a limb crushed by a 
