variety of fruit tree, particularly those called Quenouilles And they are asserted by them and the English writers to be not only admirably adapted to large fruits, as they are not so much exposed to high winds, but for pears more especially, they are declared to produce better fruit. A new mode of dwarfing the pear has lately been introduced to practice in France. The quince is inoculated on the pear stock, and after this has grown a year, the pear is inoculated into the quince, an inch above the insertion of the preceding year. The advantages of this mode are many the section of the quince being thus elevated, is not so liable to the attacks of the borer as at the surface of the earth. The roots of the pear and those of the quince require different soils. [See Pear and Quince] It is asserted that the pear should be dwarfed only for the production of summer fruit. As an argument to prove that the fruit of the pear thus produced cannot partake of the austere quality of the quince, it is asserted that both the quince and the pear are alike nourished from the earth by the same food, in quality and substance the leaves being exclusively the laboratory in which the juices are prepared which form the fruit. Even the difference in the varieties of fruit of the same species, in taste and flavor, is supposed to be owing to no other cause than some different and peculiar formation or property of the leaf. The Chinese form their dwarfs on the most fruitful limbs of bearing trees; these when rooted are separated, and when the fruit is at maturity, being much in demand in China, they bring a price in proportion to the crop they bear; especially oranges, peaches, plums, grapes, &c. They even extend their practice to flowering and other ornamental trees.

The following is extracted from the account of John Livingstone, Esq. of Macao. See vol. iv. of the Lond. Hort. Trans.

In the spring, at the time when the trees of fruit or of ornament are in blossom, they commence by selecting those branches which are most loaded with blossoms, and remove the bark quite round the branch, to the depth of about half its diameter. This part is covered with a large ball of a composition similar to grafting clay. For large branches of elm, &c. a covering of straw or coarse cloth is used; but for the orange, peach, &c. the composition is of itself sufficient.

When it has been ascertained that the roots formed are sufficient to preserve the living system, and this time varies from six weeks to three months, according to circumstances, from the commencement of the operation, the branches are separated, and after being removed to pots, their fruitfulness is preserved by cramping their growth; by confining their roots in very contracted earthen vessels; in carefully regulating and stinting their supplies of nourishment; in bending and contorting their limbs into many fanciful shapes; and confining them thus by wires. In the province of Fo-kien, where the best dwarfs are said to be formed, to entice ants to destroy the heart wood, sugar is introduced into small openings made for this purpose.

Staunton, in his account of the embassy of Lord Macartney to that country, has stated that straw was used with the clay, and a vessel of water is placed above, with an aperture sufficient to allow the water to fall slowly in single drops. This was the mode in some of the provinces.

SUBS. 6th. QUENOUILLE. This term is applied by the French to trees trained in a regular pyramidal form; from their resemblance to the ancient distaff; they term it en quenouille.

In the Department of Maine and Loire, as we are informed in the Annals of the Horticultural Society of Paris, they train their trees en quenouille, not only of the pear and apple, but of the peach, the apricot, the plum and the cherry, the vine, and other fruits. The pears for this purpose are inoculated on the quince, and the apple on the Paradise stocks.

The trees they use are principally raised at Augers, where the soil is of such extraordinary fertility, that it is possible to raise a tree or quenouille, with all its lateral branches, in a single year from the bud.

There are some kinds of pears which do not incline to throw out lateral shoots. When therefore the tree has grown to a sufficient height for the first tier of branches, they pinch off the top for their production. When the vertical shoot has risen to a sufficient height for another set of branches, it is pinched off again, and another tier is produced. And thus the process is continued, till the requisite height is attained, and the tree is completely furnished with its branches, from the bottom to the top.

When the lateral shoots incline to grow too fast, these must also be nipped in, that the equilibrium and perfect proportion of the tree may be preserved.

If

This is an operation which requires much judgment and experience in its application. It is observed that it always causes a momentary suspension of the growth. the pinching or clipping off be too near the top, but one single and vertical shoot will be produced; if the top be shortened a little lower, two branches only will put forth; but if it be shortened a little lower still, three or four lateral shoots will put out just below, and a top or vertical one. Mr Loudon in his Magazine has described, "A long row of pear trees in the garden of Chiswick trained en quenouille, or more correctly as regards those of Chiswick, en pyramide, which with the additional feature of the points of the shoots tied down, has a very fine appearance. "In short, this single row of pear trees is the most interesting feature of the garden. The shoots of the current year are bent down when fully grown, and fixed in a pendant position by shreds of bass; in the course of the winter these shreds are removed, to admit of pruning, when the shoots are found to have taken a set. In the course of the summer, such as grow too vigorously are again tied, the object being to check the vigor of the young shoots, and by impeding the return of the sap, to cause it to expand itself in those young shoots, in the formation of blossom buds."

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These pear trees at Chiswick, as Mr Lindley informs us, are all inoculated on the quince; they are trained perpendicularly with a single stem, to the height of about seven feet; with tiers of branches at regular distances, each being generally about eighteen inches long, and the tiers from nine to twelve inches apart. * * If the plant be strong and vigorous, it will throw out many more branches than are necessary; these must be trimmed out, the best only being preserved; these are to be tied down, and their luxuriance being thus materially checked, they are in consequence always furnished with fruit bearing spurs; they are productive, and the fruit they produce is far superior to that which is produced on the common standard.

We are further informed that under such management Quenouilles require but little room, a square of four feet each way being deemed sufficient; their fruit being within reach may be easily thinned to enlarge its size; it is more secure against high winds; and being near the ground, the additional warmth it receives, materially insures its ripening in perfection.

SUBS. 7th.- Fruitfulness is induced by a suitable season of repose. The trees and plants, the natives of the temperate climates, require a winter, or season of rest; - they awaken in the spring, refreshed by their slumbers, to new life and productiveness. Such trees and plants, therefore, become unfruitful within the tropics, finding no rest, nor their wonted season of repose, except only in the mountainous elevations. Yet in some tropical countries, they gave to their vines, by artificial means, a suitable time of rest and slumber; and they awake to fruitfulness for a sea(See Vine and its Cultivation.)

son.

SECTION XI.-PRUNING.

If the branches of a young tree, issuing at and above the requisite height, be made by pruning to diverge from the trunk in every direction above the horizontal, and the interior of these be carefully kept from any interference with each other for a few years, little pruning will ever afterwards be necessary.

The complicated systems of the English for pruning the apple, pear, peach and plum, are not in all respects so necessary for us; they are in part adapted exclusively to a cold climate. It is not necessary with us, to lay open, and expose every part of the tree to the direct rays of the sun: the atmosphere being in our climate, generally, of itself, sufficient to ripen the fruit.

Heavy pruning is seldom necessary or advisable — but when, as in the case of grafting or of heading down for a new growth, it becomes unavoidable, it should always be performed in that interval between the time the frost is coming out of the ground in spring, and the opening of the leaf.

A complete heading for any purpose should never be performed in early summer, or while the tree is in the most active stage of its growth. It causes a sudden stagnation of the juices, and induces a sort of paralysis. And if the tree does not die outright, it grows no more or but feebly, during the remainder of the season.

Yet for that moderate pruning which alone is generally needful, June and July and during the longest days of summer, is the very best time; for wounds of all kinds heal admirably at this period; the wood remaining sound and bright, and even a tree debarked at this season recovers a new bark immediately.

Trees ought not to be pruned in February and March, at the time the frost is coming out of the ground. This is the season when most trees, and particularly the vine and sugar maple, bleed most copiously and injuriously. It causes inveterate canker, the wounds turn black, and the bark for perhaps several feet below, becomes equally black, and perfectly dead in consequence of the bleeding.

The lower side limbs, of young trees in the nursery, should be gradually shortened, but not suddenly close-pruned; they are essential for a time to strengthen the trunk, and to the upright and perfect formation of the tree.