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 Angers, 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.

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. If 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 å 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 pendent 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."

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 a few 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.

In the autumn of 1840, being on a visit to London, I saw, at the garden of the London Hort. Society, the trees which had thus been trained, then in a very high state of productiveness; they still preserved, in a measure, their destined form; those shoots which inclined to grow upwards at the summit of the tree, being checked or shortened. The trees at that garden are usually set in very compact order, their branches generally extending downwards, quite to the ground. Mr. Wilmot, a very distinguished cultivator of fruits for the London market, practises this same system, evidently as the most economical and profitable of any other mode. His pear trees, being set in compact order, and suffered to branch low, produced abundantly. So also at Mr. Kirke's establishment, an eminent cultivator of fruits at Brompton, near London, the same system, and this only, appeared to prevail; his pear and apple trees being planted but about twelve feet asunder, or less, and suffered to branch quite down to the ground, produced the most abundant crops.

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 give to their vines, by artificial means, a suitable time of rest and slumber; and they awake to fruitfulness for a season. [See VINE, and its Cultivation.]

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.

Many of my remarks in this section have reference principally to orchards of the apple, the peach, and the pear, cultivated as standards in our own highly-favored climate, and on an extensive scale, and are not intended as applicable to the admirable system of cultivating fruit trees in pyramidal form, or en quenouille.

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 ugar 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 closepruned; they are essential for a time to strengthen the trunk, and to the upright and perfect formation of the

tree.

SECTION XII.-Noxious INSECTS, ETC.

SUBS. 1st. APHIS, PUCERON, VINE FREtter. Of this genus of insects there are many varieties; they prey on the leaves of different plants. Various modes for their extermination have been successfully tried. Infusions of tobacco-water, or of aloes, or elder leaves, or of Cayenne pepper, thrown on the leaves with a syringe, are said to be effectual. Willis's syringe is the best known for this purpose. Sulphur dusted on them with swan-down puff has been highly recommended. Lime water answers in many cases, and even soap suds. Lastly, hot vinegar is a powerful application.

SUBS. 2d. BORER. The borer is a destructive worm, which perforates the wood of the apple and quince at the surface of the earth, or a little below, where the bark is tender. If the insects have once entered the tree, they, must be dug out, or destroyed, by introducing a sharp, flexible wire, and the aperture must afterwards be filled with clay or mortar. The eggs which produce this insect are deposited from the last of April to the beginning of June. To prevent their attacks and secure the trees effectually, nothing more is necessary than to surround it, a little before the season when the eggs are deposited, either with a small conical mound of unleached ashes, or clay, or mortar, or with a wrapper of brown paper, as recommended for the peach. For small trees, a solution of two pounds of good potash in seven quarts of water, applied with a brush, from the height of a foot quite down to the surface, Is a very cheap, easy, and effectual mode of preserving trees from their attacks, provided the application is made at the suitable season.

In some parts of New Jersey the worm is very destructive to the peach tree. They enter at the surface of the