This is practiced as well to promote fruitfulness as to lessen the dimensions of trees. The roots, as has been shown, are the organs that absorb from the ground the principal food of the tree, and in proportion to their number, size and activity, other things being equal, is the vigor and growth of the stem and branches. Hence, when a tree is deprived of a certain portion of its roots, its supply of food from the soil is lessened, growth is checked, the sap moves along in its channels, is better elaborated in its leaves, and the young branches and buds begin to assume a fruitful character.

Roots are also pruned to prevent them from penetrating too deeply into the earth, and induce the formation of lateral roots near the surface, similar to the cutting back of a stem to produce lateral branches; the principal is the same."

Not a word is said as to the manner of performing the operation; how much of the roots of a young or old tree may be judiciously cut off; the best season of performing the operation, etc. Now, as root pruning is a far more dangerous operation in the hands of a novice, than any other kind of pruning, it seems to us a great oversight in a work in which the little details of practical culture are professedly entered into, merely to state the principle of the thing, and leave the operator wholly in the dark as to its practice.

Mr. Barry is very non-committal and vague on the subject of diseases of fruit trees. The yellows "is supposed to arise from negligent cultivation." The pear blight may be "owing to an insect, a fungus, or some atmospherical cause," etc. We know it is far easier to take this ground than to risk one's reputation on points where there are so many different opinions - but readers do not gain much of an addition to their previous stock of knowledge by it. Quite contrary to our observation and experience, Mr. Barry is of opinion that "to avoid the evil effects of the pear blight, the great point is to get a rapid vigorous growth before midsummer, when it usually happens." To get the growth before midsummer is certainly important, since a late growth is so frequently caught immature at the approach of winter, and suffers thereby, either in frost-blight, or in some other way - but we had considered it a pretty well settled point among American fruit growers who have studied this subject, that the great desideratum to prevent blight, is to place the tree in a condition where all "rapid and vigorous growth" - a growth always most liable to disease, and especially to the blight - should be especially guarded against, and a moderate growth of well-formed, short jointed wood, secured.

It is because of the luxuriant growth of the pear on the rich deep soils of the west, that the blight is ten times more frequent and destructive there, than in eastern gardens, and it is because such varieties as the Seckel never incline to make a luxuriant growth, that they escape the blight that preys upon the more succulent and luxuriant shoots that are almost always found on some other varieties.

But we will undertake no more of fault-finding. "We welcome Mr. Barry's book as in the main, one of sterling merit, abounding with excellent rules of practice, and a valuable hand-book for every real amateur of the fruit garden.