We were telling an old amateur gardener recently, whose back seemed almost breaking with the heavy work of earthing up celery, that there was little need of such hard labor in these days. There were the self-blanching kinds and the kinds that you could tie up and blanch, like endive or lettuce, - and at any rate, the dwarf kinds, that at most required but one or two earthings a year. " Bet your life they're no good," responded this horny-handed son of toil; and he went on with his earnest task, piling up the earth till the row looked like the steep, slated roof of a modern church. He will so keep on, once a week, till the frost puts an end to his task. Certainly some of the celery work of these fond old-time growers is of a remarkable character. Stalks as long and as thick as one's arm, and with loads of clear, white, solid, crisp material - stalks that they have spent a whole lifetime in studying just how to produce - it is no wonder the conservatives in horticulture are not ready to lie down and die at once when a radical shows his head.

In fruits as well as in vegetables, those who have spent years in studying just how to do it look on in pity at the one who searches for the royal road to fruit culture - the road along which one may jauntily saunter, gathering the ripe and delicious fruit just as it is ready, with no trouble on his part but to pluck and eat. We pointed out to one of these old-fashioned gardeners a paragraph from a western paper - "Keifer Pear a Humbug, - tasteless and useless even for hogs !" "Bet yer life !" said this same old boy, "that one is too lazy to take some trouble to have them good. I could show plenty of pears in my garden not fit for hogs, if I let them all be treated alike. Every kind of pear has its distinct requirement - one you can leave on the tree till it is ripe enough to eat, another you must pick a week ahead if you want to have a right good mouthful out of it. Some you may let lie on a board in the sun, and it will give you perfection, while another kind will insist on being put in a dark closet, or even wrapped in a blanket, before it will be fit for any but a pig to eat.

Any body, as you know, can go to old man Keifer, and he will give you one from his pear cellar that will make you fear to eat a pear of any kind forever after, lest the pleasure that luxury has given you in eating a pear that is a pear, should be dispelled. When a man says Keifer pear is a humbug, it shows he doesn't know anything, or don't care to take the trouble to practice what he knows about ripening pears." There may be some truth among this severe judgment. True it is that Mr. Keifer, a plain old Alsatian gardener, and yet with a thorough knowledge of gardening, obtained in France and Germany, that is rare in our time, - who is abundantly satisfied with his own share of the world's goods, and probably never made a dollar out of his famous seedling, - who does not care whether anybody likes his pear or does not like it, - he will give you a Keifer pear, *as our friend says, "from his pear cellar," that will make you feel that you never knew before that a pear could produce a fruit so lovable.

All these things go to show that gathering, storing, and ripening pears, is an art that cannot be taught, and yet it is a branch of knowledge that will often decide whether any one kind of fruit is not fit for a pig, or one which the highest lady in our land might be proud to set before her guests.

There would seem to be little new in the way of practical hints from year to year; what is found true once should be true for all time. But fruit growing is a complicated affair. Things are only relatively true, and, as circumstances vary, so do rules. Take fall planting trees, fall pruning, planting of large or small trees, and similar questions. There has surely been great gain. Everybody knew that, as an abstract question, it was best to plant any kind of tree in the fall. The old arguments for it were good enough. It was said that the ground was warm, roots healed, often new fibres would form, and the trees were just ready to push into growth when the growing time came. This is all true. But in practice it was found that stems evaporated moisture in a drying time, as much as they would with leaves in winter. A tree exposed to keen, frosty winds, is, therefore, at a disadvantage when it has lost many roots by transplanting. So the rule came down to this, that where the tree could be put where the roots would soon heal, where the winter would not likely be very severe, where the tree itself had good roots, and these not injured by too much drying before planting, where shelter from drying winds could be afforded, and so forth, it was a very good thing to plant in fall.

But when we look at the risks of spring planting, - the tree called into growth before new roots are formed, hot, drying summer winds, summer drouths and other contingencies, the conclusion of the observant man is that on the whole one season is no better than another, and " plant when you are ready " has become the rule. But progress has been made in getting some of the advantages without the risks. In fruit trees particularly, now, many who want to plant in spring, buy in the fall, and plant all temporarily thickly together, no matter if the stems are a foot or more deep in the ground, in some nook sheltered from drying winds. Here they remain till spring, sheltering one another, as well as being sheltered. The advantage is that the wounded roots heal over, and when replanted in spring, push into growth a couple of weeks before those then freshly taken up. Besides this, there is the great advantage of having them on hand to plant just when you are ready, instead of having them rushed in just as something else is sure to demand immediate attention. It does not take much time. Hundreds can be thus thickly planted in a few hours.

Even when trees come in spring, almost as much time has to be taken in "heeling in " to save till we are quite ready, and the imperfect manner of heeling in usually destroys large numbers, though "very carefully planted by an experienced person," as the complaint to the vendor usually reads.

And " carefully planted " has new meanings as knowledge progresses, - as in treatment of animals kindness is often cruelty. The " deep hole," " soft earth pressed about by the fingers," the "copious watering" or " puddling of roots," useful sometimes, just as often kill the trees. The perfection of good morals in tree planting is, to do it when the ground will powder and not paste - as soon as there has been dirt enough put in to somewhat cover the roots, pull the tree up and down a little to encourage the earth to jolt into every little hole and cranny, then fill in and pound down the earth as tightly as possible. Prune out all the weak shoots and shorten the stronger ones. This is good planting, and unless a tree is dried up before setting in, not one in a thousand has much chance of losing its life.

And about large trees. They do just as well as small ones, provided they are very healthy, and are taken up with all the roots that can reasonably be taken, planted as we have described and pruned in the same manner. After a tree has once come freely into bearing, and its growing powers thereby checked somewhat, it has not the same chance as a really growing tree - growing in the full sense of the word - but until this time arrives the planter may safely use the larger trees.