THE MINIATURE FRUIT GARDEN; OR THE CULTURE OF PYRAMIDAL AND BUSH FRUIT TREES; WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR ROOT-PRUNING, &c., &c. "There is no kind of fruit, however delicious, that may not be deteriorated, INTRODUCTION. My attention was drawn to the benefits fruit trees derive from root-pruning and frequent removal about the year 1810. I was then a youth, with a most active fruit-appetite, and if a tree bearing superior fruit could be discovered in my father's orchard-like nursery, I was very constant in my visits to it. In those days there was in the old nursery, first cropped with trees by my grandfather about the middle of the last century, a "quarter"-i.e., a piece of ground devoted to the reception of refuse treesof such trees as were too small or weak for customers, so that in taking up trees for orders during the winter they were left, and, in spring, all taken up and transplanted to the "hospital quarter," as the laborers called it. The trees in this quarter were often removed,-they were, in nursery parlance, "driven together" when they stood too thinly in the ground; or, in other words, taken up, often annually, and planted nearer together, on the same piece of ground. This old nursery contained about eight acres, the soil a deep reddish loam, inclining to B |