The reason that summer-pruning induces fruitfulness is that it lessens the means of exhaustion, and thereby invigorates the remaining branches at the season when the germs of the future crop are forming.

Nor is the injury to the crop the only evil from neglect or other causes resulting in defective nutrition. It is doubtless the last and closing act of the season to deposit in the tissues of the tree nutriment for the early growth of the leaves and fruit-buds. As the leaves are the elaborating organs, there can be no nutriment elaborated till they are formed: hence the necessity for such deposit.

The grain of wheat or corn contains nutriment for the expanding germ, and sustains it till the organs of nutrition are produced.

The grape or currant cutting furnishes food to sustain its growth until the rootlets are formed; and such is the universal law or requirement of Nature as applied to both vegetable and animal growth.

The cultivator should see that the requirements of Nature are met, and that no untoward influence interferes to thwart her designs at that critical period.

If the soil ceases to furnish the necessary food for the tree, or if excessive drought exhausts the moisture, rendering the soil so dry and compacted as to check the growth prematurely before the fruit-germs are developed, there can be no blossoms; or the blossoms will prove abortions, and the fruit will fall prematurely, or be scabby and defective; or, in extreme cases, the starved tree will, in its efforts to perform its functions, exhaust itself; the bark will die, and loosen at the collar or base of the limbs, producing permanent injury or death.

An occasional season occurs when cuttings unaccountably fail to grow, although the spring season seems favorable. The cause is evidently starvation by excessive drought or other cause the previous autumn.

If the young shoots taken for cuttings are deprived of generous nourishment at the close of the growing season, they will not contain the necessary material to develop a perfect plant; the buds will burst, and make a feeble growth: but the elements of growth are exhausted before roots are formed; and the cutting dies from exhaustion, as the nursery-man observes to his The cause and effect are the same in the fruit-bud and the

sorrow.

cutting.

Careful and generous cultivation or mulching, so as to secure a regular and constant growth through the entire season, is evidently the proper remedy.

There may be danger of too high cultivation late in the season, producing a succulent growth that may be injured by the cold of winter; but experience, I think, will show that there is less danger in this direction than the opposite.

The fruit-buds of the peach and other delicate fruits, which are easily excited, are frequently prematurely developed by warm and wet weather in the fall, and, when so developed, are sure to be killed by the first severe cold; but such development never occurs except after a season of rest.

If the growth is regular and constant through the entire season, there is no danger; but if, after the fruit-buds are formed, severe drought occurs, so that the growth ceases and the leaves mostly fall, and subsequently the buds are stimulated by very warm and wet weather, they will swell, and the injury follows of course.

My conclusions are, that to preserve the health and vigor of our fruittrees, and insure a regular production of fruit, requires the most careful treatment during the last of summer and early autumn, counteracting the effect of extreme drought or extreme wet, and effecting a uniform, constant, and healthy growth, till the gradually-advancing cold strips them of their foliage, and consigns them to their annual rest in a normal state.

An excessive growth is never healthful, but is particularly injurious at the close of the season. The growth should be gradually checked, but only by Nature's proper agent, the cold winds of approaching winter, the lullaby that puts them to sleep. Elmer Baldwin.

CONSEILLER DE LA COUR.

THIS is not a new pear; having been raised by Dr. Van Mons. It is also known in the Belgian collections as Maréchal de la Cour and Duc d'Orléans. It has constantly been increasing in favor; which induces us to reproduce it at this time.

Description. Form obovate, sometimes obtuse, pyriform; size quite large; stems short, stout, generally inserted on an angle; calyx very small. segments frequently abortive; basin small, narrow; color dark green, becoming dull yellow at maturity, coarsely dotted and occasionally veiled with a thin coating of russet; flesh yellowish-white, melting, juicy, buttery, rather

coarse, and a little granulous at the core; flavor spirited, vinous, with a rich, nut-like aroma, and slight astringency near the skin; season November to December; quality very good, highly esteemed by those who like an acidulous pear; tree hardy, of fine form and habit, foliage and fruit persistent, very prolific and vigorous, making a tree of the largest class.

Marshall P. Wilder.

GRAFTING THE VINE.

YOUR correspondent Mr. Samuel Miller gives the true season for grafting the vine successfully. We have tried grafting the vine at various seasons of the year, but never succeeded except during its period of growth; and this is the necessary state or condition plants should be in to be successfully operated on. It should be remembered, however, that there is always something more wanted than a mere description of a mechanical operation. For instance, we may tell your readers that cuttings of fuchsias should be made two inches long, put in sand, and bottom-heat applied; which will insure their rooting with ordinary care. But watch the novice and the man of experience at this simple operation. The former will take any piece of wood that comes first to his knife, and most likely that which is perfectly hard, but succeeds in striking some of them in the course of perhaps four or five weeks' time; while the latter, finding his plants in a hard, ripened condition, will lightly cut back the points of the shoots, place them in good strong heat, and take off the cuttings in quite a soft, sappy condition of two joints, and root them in about eight days, and not miss the rooting of one cutting in a thousand. Here, then, lies the difference between a mere mechanical operation and that of a necessary experience of the condition of things to a successful act of the mechanical. We say, the vine can be as successfully grafted as a willow can be rooted; but the vine must be in a growing state. The first leaves should be fully developed before attempting the operation. This becomes requisite from the fact that the vine will not bleed in this state the crude sap with its great force has passed up through the plant-tissue, changed its condition chemically through the agency of the leaves, and, in the act of returning over the wood, is in a more glutinous condition for the union of the scion to its fitted parts; and thus the alburnum of both scion and stock unite instantly. There is no uniting of the duramen, or hard wood, as many suppose, but a formation of wood over wood. Now, it will be seen, from what has been said, that the union that is effected lies in the fact of the immediate uniting of the alburnum of the two different parts which come in contact under the proper con

ditions. But suppose, now, that we have a vine growing in the open air whose leaves are just fully developed, and that we secured grafts during winter of a desired sort to work on this vine: we should, most probably, after cutting off the grafts, put them away in some place where heat would not start the buds, in order that the sap in these grafts should lie dormant ; and, when the vine had arrived at the state of growth spoken of, we should take these dormant scions, and work them on the stock. Now, we ask you, reader, do you think that such scions, or grafts, would be in an exact condition with the vine-stock? Your reason, now the incongruity is spoken of, tells you no: for you can see at once that these grafts would have to remain (when grafted on the stock) some time before the hard glutinous matter would be dissolved sufficiently to be in the exact condition of the same matter which is returning over the wood of the vine-stock; and, after waiting long enough to allow heat to so liquidize this glutinous matter of the scion, both fluids would then unite, and growth would be effected. This is the reason why scions take so long to start into growth. Now, to obviate this, we bring the scions into the same temperature as the stocks are growing in, some eight or ten days previous to their being worked: by this means we get the sap, as it is called, in the scion, in a nearer approach to the condition of the sap of the vine-stock; and the result has been, with us, seldom a failure. The same law applies to the exotic vine as to those in the open air; and so easily is the grafting effected, that we have taken vines that were spur-pruned, say of a black variety, and inserted a white variety at every alternate position, producing the singular-looking effect of having one bunch white, and the other black, alternately, on the same vine. In this way we worked what was called a new variety, Muscat Hamburg (black) on White Muscat of Alexandria. Such operation is performed by merely taking a single bud, cutting it wedge form, and tying it in where required. This we have often done without even the grafting-wax. Indeed, failure often results from using the latter carelessly, rubbing it in between the bark of the scion and the stock. does nothing more than exclude the air. As we graft vines usually under glass, when of a large size, in the ordinary way, by either the saddle, whip. or crown method, there remains generally an unsightly, warty excrescence, which becomes enlarged with the age of the vine, and prevents that free

The use of wax is proper if it