On a new Method of training Fruit Trees. 3*1 



of them were fifteen feet wide; and the young wood in 

 every part acquired the most perfect maturity. In the win- 

 ter, the. shoots of the last season were alternately shortened, 

 and left their whole length, and they were then prepared to 

 afford a most abundant and regular blossom in the succeed- 

 ing spring. 



In the autumn of the third year the trees were nearly as 

 represented in Fig. 3, the central part of each being formed 

 of very fine bearing wood ; and the size and general health 

 of the trees afford evidence of a more regular distribution 

 of the sap, than I have witnessed in any other mode of 

 training. 



In the preceding method of treating peach trees very little 

 use was made of the knife during winter ; and I must re- 

 mark that the necessity of winter pruning should generally 

 be avoided as much as possible ; for by laying in a much " 

 larger quantity of wood in the summer and autumn than can 

 be wanted in the succeeding year, the gardener gams no. 

 oiher advantage than that of having a w great choice of fine 

 bearing wood to fill his walls/' and I do not see any ad- 

 vantage in his having much more than he wants ; on the 

 contrary, the health of the tree always suffers by too much 

 use of the knife through successive seasons. 



To enier into the detail of pruning, in the manner in 

 which I think it might be done with most advantage, would 

 of necessity lead me much beyond the intended limits of my 

 present communication; but I shall take this opportunity of 

 offering a few observations on the proper treatment of luxu- 

 riant shoots of the peach tree, the origin and office of which, 

 as well as the right mode of pruning them, are not at all ' 

 understood either by the writers on gardening of this coun- 

 try, or the Continent. 



I have shown in the Philosophical Transactions of 1805, 

 that the alburnum or sip wood of oak trees loses a consi- 

 derable part of its weight during the period in which its 

 leaves are formed in the spring ; and that any portion of the 

 alburnum affords less extractive matter after the leaves have 

 been formed than previously. I have also shown that the 

 aqueous fluid which ascends in the spring in the birch and 

 C 3 - sycamore 



