Apricot and peach trees should be examined this month, and where the fruit appears to be set too thick, which will be mostly the case in prolific seasons, they must be reduced to a moderate quantity.  This must nevertheless be done with care, and only such of the fruit as is proper to remain left upon the tree.

In this month the garden should be cleaned all through, and walls and fruit trees well examined, to prevent insects from lodging.

In NOVEMBER such trees as were inoculated the previous summer will want the young shoots tying, either to the top of the stock, or to have a stake driven in near them to tie the shoot to, that they may not be broken off by the wind.  All budded and grafted trees will in November want constant attention.  All shoots that do not grow from the eye of the bud, or from the graft, must be taken off, that the graft or bud may receive all the nourishment the stock can afford.

In November evergreens may be propagated by layers, from the young shoots of the summer’s growth.

In December the same observance is to be attended to with respect to evergreens; and peach trees should now be thinned of their fruit, where it appears too thick.

Observations on some particular Fruit Trees.

The Orange.

In pruning, the knife should be as little used as possible, if you wish them to bear.  The southerly winds are very unfavorable to their growth, and parts opened by the knife admit the air, and kill the bloom.  This tree is perhaps more infested by ants than any other; and the black contracted appearance of the leaves is much attributed to this insect.  From this persuasion, which is pretty general, various methods have been tried to keep them off.  Human ordure laid round the boll of the tree will prevent their appearing so long as it retains moisture, but not longer; tar has been applied round both the trunk and branches, and only answered while moist; yet a cure, if the ant be really inimical, is certain to be found, with little trouble, and without expence, in common suds from a wash tub, in which ley has been used.  This wash should be laid well about the roots in the evening, when the ants have left the tree, which will be mostly the case, and in wet weather always so, and there need be little apprehension of their return next morning; a woollen bandage, dipped in oil, will also be found a preventative to their ascending the tree.  This application, whenever ants appear, will have the desired effect; but whether these insects are injurious to the tree or not, is to be doubted upon this principle, namely, that the ant, being excessively carnivorous, is instinctively led to the orange tree in quest of the eggs, exuviae, larvae, etc. of some very minute insect, whose eggs are attached to the leaves by a glutinous substance, emitted by themselves in such quantity as to discolour the leaf, the pores of which being thus stopped, it becomes hard and tusky, and