Let us have the base right. We want four or five good branches and a leader; then we cut back to just as many buds, and we take care at the same time to have the bud that is intended to form the leader (main stem) to be on the side that the young shoots will be perpendicular to its base. Now, if the condition of the soil is right, in the spring we watch the bursting buds, and they come forth with vigor. The side shoots we will call horizontal shoots, and the main stem we will call the leader, for the sake of understanding what we are talking about. Now our horizontals have grown out some six inches; we now nip out their points with the finger and thumb, but not the leader - we allow the leader to grow twelve inches, and then we serve it the same way.

But, Mr. Amateur, what is your object in nipping your horizontal shoots at six inches; is it done to produce two or three shoots from them again? - No, sir, for if that was the case my trees would be just like yours - a bundle of sticks (M. D. looks down.) The object is this, sir: nipped at six inches, all the base eyes, i. e. all the eyes below where we pinched off, burst; one we allow to grow on, - the others form fruiting spurs at once. Should any of these eyes have a tendency to make shoots, you can detect it at once, and you must make it a fruiting spur with your thumb-nail. Now you understand how these horizontal branches are formed and how the fruiting spurs are produced on them. You see, sir, you can extend to the length you please, and stop the same at pleasure. Now, in reference to the leader; we stop it at twelve inches, and being allowed to grow twelve inches instead of six, it has gained a little more strength.But, the object, Mr. Amateur, of stopping by so much rule? We want another tier of horizontal branches, sir, and coming from the leader twelve inches above the others, is just close and far enough apart.

We also look about on this new wood to see where the eyes are going to break, for we want this tier of young shoots to intersect the first, so that when the tree is fully formed every tier of branches sits alternately to each other. You will also find that after you have stopped the leader, it will not break, perhaps, more than three horizontal shoots; the leader we allow to grow on through the season and next spring cut it back to four eyes, giving a leader and three more horizontals; in this way the tree is furnished with branches from the ground up; no branch interferes with another, and each branch is properly spurred. Each branch of the same strength capacitated to carry its respective weight of fruit. The power of the tree is equally balanced. This balance of power we must watch, - it may trouble us a little in the branches of fruit-trees, but not half so much as it troubles the crowned heads of Europe. If we get a branch that inclines to grow, weak, let the stopping alone, - let it gain its balance, but take care and stop the others, if anything more than before, for by doing so you throw the sap into the weaker channel.You grow your fruiting spurs, Mr. Amateur, on your horizontals, I see, without the knife?-----Certainly. Suppose you take a young tree and head it in every year with the knife - I mean constantly stump it down - when would you expect to get fruit from it?M. D. smiles, - thinks he has been doing the same thing with his dwarf pear-trees. This has been a long chat, Mr. Gardener, So I Bid You Good-Day.

-----M. D. thinks he understands what his amateur friend means, - thinks he can see through a pear-tree, and laughs at his own. No wonder they do not fruit, - (wonder how many thousands of bundles of sticks there are in the world beside his own,) and believes, too, that it is never too late to learn.