HINTS ON PIN'CHING. 



plaot a wonder. Such plants are the most striking examples of the influence of the 

 pinching process that we can find in the whole range of horticulture. But this plant 

 grower applies the finger and thumb in season — he does not wait till his plant has 

 grown tall and misshapen, and then go to worlc to reform it. As soon as he sees 

 well formed buds in the axils of the leaves, he knows that by stopping the terminal 

 growth these buds will be forced into growth, and produce lateral shoots. 



In the management of trees we find it very common for one or more branches to 

 start with an undue share of vigor, and weaken all other parts of the tree by drawing 

 and appropriating all the nutriment to themselves. A slight bruise 

 or a bond, perhaps, will lead to the development of one of these 

 branches at a point where no branch is required. Fig. 2 represents 

 an instance of this kind. The tree became slightly bent, and this 

 arrested the continuous flow of sap toward the summit ; the conse- 

 quence was the development of a very strong shoot, 

 wdiat the French designate very properly as a '■'■ ()our- 

 mamir It controlled the whole tree, and left it at 

 the end of the season in the misshapen condition rep- 

 resented in the cut. Now the careful cultivator 

 would have observed the first symptoms of these 

 results ; that strong shoot pushing out with such undue vigor would 

 at once have attracted his attention, and be would have placed his 

 tree in an upright position, to aid the regular ascent and free circula- 

 tion of the sap, and have checked this misshaped shoot, and thus 

 secured an equal distribution of growth that would have left him at the end of the 

 season with a tree something like fig. 3. 



In the management of trees trained as dwarfs, pyramids, or espaliers, 

 pinching is an indispensable operation. In almost all trees there is a 

 natural tendency to grow most vigoa-ously towards the top and at the 

 extremeties of the branches, and this requires to be kept 

 in continual check durino' the ofrowina: season : for if one 

 portion of a tree bo permitted but for a short time to 

 grow more vigorously than the others, the balance is 

 destroyed and much time and severe measures are I'e- 

 quired to restore it. In the case of young trees that 

 have been cut back for the purpose of producing the 

 pyramid form, it often happens that three or four buds 

 at the summit push so vigorously as to draw all the sap 

 by those below them, and a tree somewhat like fig. 4 is 

 produced. Now if the upper shoots next the leader had been checked 

 by pinching, the lower branches would have been favored, and we 

 would have got a tree like fig. 5. 



In this way, under a great variety of circumstances, pinching is applied to counter- 

 act the defects of pruning and of growth. At this time the young shoots of trees 



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