If the garden has been enriched as I have directed, the soil will probably need little, if anything, from the stables, and certainly will not if the trees are grown in a poultry-yard.  During this growing and forming period Mr. Force gave careful attention to pruning.  Budded trees are not even symmetrical growers, but tend to send up a few very strong shoots that rob the rest of the tree of sustenance.  Of course these must be cut well back in early spring, or we have long, naked reaches of wood and a deformed tree.  It is far better, however, not to let these rampant shoots grow to maturity, but to pinch them back in early summer, thus causing them to throw out side-branches.  By summer pinching and rubbing off of tender shoots a tree can be made to grow in any shape we desire.  When the trees receive no summer pruning, Mr. Force advises that the branches be shortened in at least one half in the spring, while some shoots are cut back even more rigorously.  At the age of four or five years, according to the vigor of the trees, he permits them to bear.  Now cultivation ceases, and the ground is left to grow hard, but not weedy or grassy, beneath the boughs.  Every spring, just as the blossoms are falling, he spreads evenly under the branches four quarts of salt.  While the trees thrive and grow fruitful with this fertilizer, the curculio, or plum-weevil, does not appear to find it at all to its taste.  As a result of his methods, Mr. Force has grown large and profitable crops, and his trees in the main are kept healthy and vigorous.  His remedy for the black knot is to cut off and burn the small boughs and twigs affected.  If the disease appears in the side of a limb or in the stem, he cuts out all trace of it, and paints the wound with a wash of gum shellac and alcohol.

Trees load so heavily that the plums rest against one another.  You will often find in moist warm weather decaying specimens.  These should be removed at once, that the infection may not spread.

In cutting out the interfering boughs, do not take off the sharp-pointed spurs which are forming along the branches, for on these are slowly maturing the fruit-buds.  In this case, as in others, the careful observer, after he has acquired a few sound principles of action to start with, is taught more by the tree itself than from any other source.

Mr. Force recommends the following ten varieties, named in the order of ripening:  Canada; Orleans, a red-cheeked plum; McLaughlin, greenish, with pink cheek; Bradshaw, large red, with lilac bloom; Smith’s Orleans, purple; Green Gage; Bleeker’s Gage, golden yellow; Prune d’Agen, purple; Coe’s Golden Drop; and Shropshire Damson for preserves.

If we are restricted to very light soils, we shall probably have to grow some of the native varieties, of the Canada and Wild-Goose type.  In regard to both this fruit and peaches we should be guided in our selection by information respecting varieties peculiarly suited to the region.