FRUIT GROWING. 
109 
high board fences, &c., are of great avail; and so are close 
planting and low heads. Other things being equal, I have lost 
nine trees with tall, naked trunks, for one with a head based 
on earth, so as to shut out the sun. 
Cultivation. —Young trees require more cultivation than 
corn , and old ones little less. None but hoed crops should 
ever be taken from an orchard. Grass is bad, and small grains 
ruinous. When an orchard comes into bearing, the fruit crop 
is enough to take from it. 
Pruning. —Except for top-grafting large trees, or removing 
dead limbs, a saiv should not come into an orchard; and your 
knife should be used sparingly. “ Cut back,” or “ shorten in,” 
long straggling branches, and the “whip-stock” tops of young 
trees, and remove a little of the superfluous spray from the 
middle of the heads of such old ones as are inclined to get 
unreasonably thick, and consequently, barren in the center. 
But don’t remove strong, healthy limbs, unless they rub 
against each other, and cannot be tied apart, and preserved.— 
As often practiced, pruning is little better than barbarism. 
Mid-summer is the best time to prune young trees; but au¬ 
tumn, before cold weather — or spring, before the buds start, 
will do, and is all the better if you wish to increase the 
growth of wood. 
Manuring. —Vegetable manures are usually injurious, when 
applied to young trees, by causing too rapid and spongy-wood 
growth: but it may be necessary in poor, thin soils, after the 
trees have been a few years in bearing. I would then use it 
as a top-dressing. 
Leached ashes, bones, lime &c., are needed wherever the 
mineral matters they afford are either exhausted by crops, or 
naturally deficient. 
Our summer substitute for fruit—the Pie Plant —will stand 
a heap of manure, and needs it; and that democratic berry, 
the Currant, seldom gets enough. 
Varieties of Fruit. —I am sorry to say that we, of North¬ 
ern Illinois and Wisconsin, cannot depend entirely upon the 
