By the above sledging practice, we have successfully removed fruit trees 2 1/2 feet in circumference, at two feet from the ground, and have had some 20 feet high, make a new addition to their height of six inches the first summer, where no shortening of the top had taken place. We have also plucked fair loads of fruit, both first and second season, as large {242} and well matured as any of the same kind produced by trees which had not been touched; but it is generally prudent not to allow them to fruit the first two seasons. As an experiment, we cut most of the branches from the top of two of the trees—that is, headed them down, but found these did not grow so well as those which were only slightly pruned, or not pruned at all. Pruning at planting should take place in cases where there are long annual shoots of the preceding season, or much close spray as in old fruiting-trees; the former should be cut in, to five or six buds in length, and the latter ought to be thinned, to an extent, which the kind of tree, the largeness and safe state of the root, soil, exposure, and climate, must determine: we request our readers to pay attention to this. Pruning the long annual shoots, prevents a too early formation of leaves, which often occurs in moist cold soil, and which wither before the roots begin to strike. In some cases, where we found the earth too friable, and not sufficiently bound together by the roots, to rise up in a cake, we first prepared the stool for upsetting, and waited for hard frost[50] to bind {243} the earth and roots into a firm body like a large millstone, pouring some water upon it the evening previous to the commencement of the frost, that it might become firmer; we then proceeded with our sledging during the frost if the road was smooth; and, if rough, we covered over the frozen root with straw to retain the frost; and the first day of fresh, when the ground was soft and slippery above, and hard underneath, we proceeded with our work, taking care not to cover up the root with earth till it had thawed. We have found (contrary to general opinion), that no injury is sustained by exposure of the roots of various kinds of trees to frost, or as great cold as generally occurs at the surface of the ground in this climate. We have succeeded equally well with pear-trees, which had lain out on the exposed bare crown of a ridge for two months of winter, without the smallest quantity of earth adhering to the roots, or protection of any kind, as with those immediately from the ground where they grew. We have even thought that a certain exposure of the roots to cold increased their susceptibility to be stimulated to strike quicker by the warmth of the ground in spring, and thus the root suction coming to act sooner than it usually does in transplanted trees without balls, and nearer the time of the expansion {244} of the leaves; the check occasioned by the upper vegetation being too forward for the lower, was not so great.