TWO NEW FORMS OF TRAINING WALL TREES. 253 



soil of average fertility, may produce good fruit and preserve a 

 proper state of health. If the secondary branches be placed 

 at a distance of 2 feet from each other, six of them may be 

 developed on each tree. If an interval of two years between the 

 time of obtaining the first and second stages of secondary branches 

 be allowed, it will take seven years to obtain the whole number 

 of stages, and four years more must elapse before the upper 

 secondary branches can attain their full length ; that is, alto- 

 gether, eleven years. 



If instead of Peach-trees we take Pear-trees, and train them as 

 above against a similar wall, planted as before in a soil of 

 average fertility, and grafted on Quince stocks, the same space 

 must be allowed between them as was allowed in the case of the 

 Peach-trees ; for Pear-trees ought to cover the same surface to 

 be sufficiently productive. But as the secondary branches should 

 be placed only one foot above each other, they cannot be all 

 obtained in less than thirteen years ; and if to that we add four 

 years for the completion of the growth of the upper branches, we 

 have seventeen years altogetiier. 



Pretty nearly the same period of time is required by all the 

 other forms of training, and it becomes longer still in the cases 

 of Cherry, Plum, and Apricot trees trained against walls ; for 

 these trees have a greater number of secondary branches, the 

 spaces between which ought not properly to exceed 8 inches, and 

 only one stage can be obtained in a year. It takes, indeed, 

 nearly twenty-four years to get these trees into the form men- 

 tioned. 



It is true the principal branches of these different trees may 

 be sometimes obtained much more quickly ; for example, by 

 making several stages grow in the same year either by winter 

 pruning, or, which is better, by causing the development of buds 

 by means of summer pruning. But these methods can only be 

 adopted in special cases, and when the trees are more than 

 usually vigorous ; otherwise the growth of the lower secondary 

 branches is almost always injured. What we have stated above 

 is then true as a general rule. 



But length of time is not the only ground of objection to these 

 forms of training. If by any accident (and this often occurs 

 in stone-fruit trees) one of the secondary, or even one of the 

 primary, branches be lost after the tree is formed, whether it be 

 fan-trained, en canrlelabre, or horizontally with two stems, it is a 

 matter of exceeding difficulty, not to say impossibility, to refill 

 the space thus left empty. The tree consequently, during the 

 remainder of its existence, occupies profitably only a portion of 

 the space originally allotted to it. . 



On the other hand the different methods at present in vogue, 



