1869.] CULTIVATION OF HARDY FRUITS. 537 



trained. No doubt it can be managed either way — by bending and 

 twisting down the strong shoots, and elevating and encouraging the 

 weaker, at the same time root-pruning the tree on the strong side 

 without touching the other. These and some other methods may be 

 adopted with success in either case ; but where the fan system is taken, 

 the shoots can for a season or two be twisted and bent, yet so well dis- 

 posed all over the wall that the existence of such contortions can 

 scarcely be detected ; whereas, by the other method, it cannot be done 

 without presenting a very ungainly appearance. For these reasons we 

 would recommend the fan as the best mode of training to be adopted 

 for the Plum, 



This having been decided upon after the wood is ripe and the 

 foliage fallen, if three nice ripe young shoots are upon the young tree, 

 let the centre one be selected and cut down to within 3 or 4 inches of 

 where it started, and each of the side ones cut back to about 18 inches 

 or so. Care should be taken to ivy, if possible, to get the top bud 

 of the leader on the front of the shoot with two well-placed eyes 

 below it, one looking towards the right and the other towards the 

 left, the former to form a leader and the latter to make side branches. 

 Should the two side shoots prove of very unequal proportions, we 

 would recommend that both be removed, and the tree treated as if it 

 only possessed one shoot. Where one shoot only is produced from the 

 graft or bud, it ought to be cut back to within 9 inches of the base, 

 remembering to have the buds placed as already directed for the 

 leader. We recommend this height as the best for the Plum, so that 

 if the shoots or under branches of the tree are wanted about 1 foot 

 from the ground, they may not be taken away at right angles from 

 the stem. Mr Thompson, in the ' Gardener's Assistant,' says, that 

 where this method is adopted, " the branches will not be so liable to die 

 off as if they were taken at right angles, which, in training stone-fruits, 

 should never be the case." Two very good reasons may be given for 

 this — the first, that in a tree of so robust and vigorous a nature as the 

 Plum, if the branches are taken away directly at right angles from the 

 stem, those branches above which are trained oblique or perpendicularly 

 will be sure to rob these under ones to a very great extent, and, as a 

 natural consequence, if they do not die, the}'' will, at all events, make 

 but very slow progress. If, however, they are started 4 inches below, 

 and brought up to the horizontal line at an angle of 45' or so, the 

 results will be very different, as the juices of the tree will be introduced 

 into their proper channels ere they reach the horizontal line, and they 

 will therefore be the better able to fio;ht the battle for existence. The 

 second reason is, that, from the very nature of the Plum, it is to be ex- 

 pected that in bending down its branches to the right angle of its per- 



