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the one with which I saw you engaged, in December, 1811.

"When I came home, I caused a cutler make me an instrument similar to the one you shewed me, for barking your trees, and commenced my operations on an old Scotch Carnock, with a very hard and corrugated bark, which regularly produced plenty of blossom, but seldom or ever any fruit. I began among the small branches near the top, and continued working downwards, destroying in my progress many thousands of insects, with their eggs. Most of the professional men blamed me for spoiling a good tree. In spring it produced a profusion of flowers, which they declared useless, and the last it would ever shed. In autumn, however, it yielded as much fine fruit as it could possibly carry. The bark is now in

a healthy and vigorous state, and the tree

has every appearance of bearing a large crop

this season.

(Signed)

"JAMES HARDIE, Jun."

Another argument has been brought forward against the practice of peeling, "that nature would not have given the bark, had it not been for some useful purpose." This. is certainly true, when applied to sound inmost bark, because it is so essential that the tree cannot live without it; as the juices. which nourish the tree are carried on between it and the wood: but it is difficult to conceive the use of dry hardened scabs : and though the whole bark may be neces sary at an early period to carry on the circulation, as it is then very thin and yielding, and cannot much injure the tree by its.

stricture; yet, at a more advanced period, it seems not only unnecessary, but hurtful.

So the food that is necessary for the young animal, is not only unnecessary, but unfit for the old. And it may be observed, that the transverse bark, which is the principal cause of almost all the maladies of fruit trees, is always destroyed by nature, and never replaced.

We do not suppose that nature gives any thing in vain; but we see, as in the transverse bark, and in the blossom, that when she has served her purpose, she throws them aside; and when we observe her too weak, or too tardy, it is our duty to assist her. But the vanity of man makes him think that nothing is of use in nature but what is for He fancies the earth was made

his own.

H

for him. The sun and moon were made for him, and the stars are only as so many brass nails to adorn the roof of his carriage. Further, if we are not to venture to take off the bark because nature has given it, we ought not to root out weeds, because nature has given them also; and why destroy the vermin? They too are the gift of nature. If we were to follow out this mode of reasoning, where would it lead us? Nature could have produced crops without weeds, and fruit without trees. She could have produced the fruits of the earth without tilling and sowing: Why not loaves and rolls ready made, and then there would have been no occasion for sowers, reapers, millers, or bakers? Nay, nature could as easily have made man to live without food: but in that state what he would have been we can have no conception. I can give no other

reason for these productions of nature, than that they are to make man industrious. The stricture of the outer bark, however, which gives rise to the greatest part of the labour on fruit trees, can easily be explained, without referring to the final cause.

The outer bark forming a greater circle than the inner, would require to expand faster, but is prevented, being rendered more rigid by exposure to the weather, and is burst by the growth of the tree*. But

* If we were to reason, or rather imagine, like the medical tribe, we would not suppose that the bark was burst by the growth of the tree, but that the vis medicatrix naturae brought on a spasm or constriction to remove the constriction.

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