RE-GRAFTING OLD ORCHARDS.--Old orchards of inferior fruit may be entirely re-made and re-formed by grafting the limbs with such varieties as we may desire. A new life is by this process often infused into the trees, which is due to the very severe pruning which the trees then receive; they are consequently soon covered with a vigorous growth of young healthy wood, which replaces the decrepid and often decaying spray that accumulates in an old orchard, and the fruit produced for several years by the new growth is not only more valuable in kind, according to the judgment used in the selection of grafts, but it is more fair, smooth and healthy, and of better size than that which was previously furnished by the trees. Certain varieties are brought at once into bearing when thus top-grafted, which would have been long in developing their fruitful condition if planted as nursery trees. Others are always better and finer when so worked, than on young trees. Some of the finest specimens of the Northern Spy apple, exhibited at the fairs, have been produced by grafts inserted into the terminal branches of old bearing trees. There is a theory held by some orchardists, that the further the junction of the graft with the stock is removed from the root, the better will be the fruit. This, however, is not well supported, and the circumstance, when observed, is probably dependent upon other causes. In renewing an old orchard by grafting its head, it will not be a good plan to attempt the whole tree at once; the pruning would be too severe, and would be followed by a profusion of succulent shoots breaking out from the large branches, such as are called water-sprouts. Those who have practiced most, prefer at first, to remove about one-third of the limbs for grafting, and those should be selected at the top of the tree. The new growth thus has an open field for its development, and the lower limbs will be invigorated, while they tend also to preserve the equilibrium of the tree in a double sense, physically and physiologically. The next year another third of the limbs may be grafted, and the remainder the year following, as practiced by Mr. Geo. Olmstead, of Connecticut, who, on the sixth year from the first grafting, harvested 28-½ bushels of choice apples from a single tree that was 75 years old, and which before only produced inferior fruit. J.J. Thomas recommends, "to give a well-shaped head to such newly formed trees, and to prevent the branches from shooting upward in a close body near the centre of the tree; that the old horizontal boughs should be allowed to extend to a distance in each direction, while the upright ones should be lopped;" see fig. 16. The same writer also advises, "instead of cutting off large branches and grafting them at once, it is better to prune the top in part, which will cause an emission of vigorous shoots. These are then budded, or grafted. * * * And as the grafts gradually extend