THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE 87 
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summer ; you throw away the work of a year; youcompel the tree tomake another 
effort ab initio for the production of another set of long rods, instead of employing 
its lorg rods as the foundations for fruit spurs. You simply engage in a warfare 
with Nature, and we know full well whois likely to be beaten in such a case. But 
you fee] you must do something with those long rods, and I advise that you delude 
them into the idea that they are bearing fruit. Many years ago I adopted a prac- 
tice of attaching pebbles and other such handy weignay means of string to my 
long rods, so as to draw them gently to a horizontal position, and I found this very 
simple mode of procedure promoted fruit production to such an extent that the long 
rods became like ropes of onions. I call this “ pulley-pruning,” said Mr, Hibberd, 
and I can recommend its adoption with all the long-rod growers, such as Knight’s 
Monarch Pear and all the rampant growing plums, for it comes nearer to Nature’s 
method of pulling the branches down with a weight of fruit, and it checks exube- 
rant growth without doing violence to the tree, and is much less trouble than actual 
mutilation. 
In illustration of these remarks, attention was directed to some interesting ex~ 
amples in the shape of trees that had been subjected to various modes of treatment. 
Mr. Hibberd described a plantation of fruit trees of various kinds made six years 
ago, the trees selected for the purpose being the ugliest he could possibly obtain. 
His friend, Mr. Ware, of Tottenham, had assisted in the search fur these ugly trees, 
little expecting that, in the course of only six years, they would prove to be equally 
remarkable for beauty and fertility. Three conditions, said the lecturer, were re- 
garded in this business. He resolved that, however ugly the trees, they should be 
of good sorts in their several classes, grafted on free stocks, and planted with as 
much care as if they were the finest trees in the world. ‘hey were planted on a 
strong soil that would produce the finest oak and elm timber and the finest wheat 
in the world, and a vigorous growth has made them what they are. They have 
never been touched with the knife, and it is but fair to say that here and there a 
cross shoot might be cut out with advantage. We need not be fanatics in re- 
nouncing the use of the knife, but it is high time to restrict the liberty of those 
gardeners who go about hacking and slashing, and who are evidently too thick- 
headed to know that when they have cut a waggon-load of branches off a tree, it 
is scarcely possible to put them on again. But, after all, the marvel is that amateurs 
who may be accredited with the capability of reflecting have taken a firm hold of 
the idea that the smaller the tree the greater will be its productiveness, and the 
proper development of this faith is that fruit will most abound where there are no 
trees at all, Well may they adopt starving stocks, and freely use the knife to root 
and branch. 
As a matter of course, the lecturer had to face the question of the pruning of 
espalier and wall-trees, and begun by saying that they were usually pruned too 
hard. The larger the tree, ceteris paribus, the better. Restriction caused a pro- 
voking prodaction of useless spray, checked healthy root-action, and endangered 
the health of the tree. One great healthy peach or nectarine would produce more 
fruit and better fruit thana dozen trees systematically ‘ kept within bounds,” and 
require but a tenth of the time to take care of it that the restricted trees would 
demand. As to the general system of pruning wall-trees, it was sound, and we had 
reason to be proud of our peach walls; but there was room for improvement in the 
case of wall trees in bad climates, for the very best protection they could have was a 
bristling of breast-wood, which should be allowed them by the pruner. A fringe 
of short shoots projecting from the wall proved a most efficient shelter to the in- 
cipient fruit, when it happened that about May 20 there came a killing frost, and 
swept the crop from east walls in the case of trees pruned, according to prevailing 
notions, with the most perfect propriety. 
We are compelled in this summary to omit many matters of interest, but we must 
briefly describe a model peach garden that was brought before us—an exact reproduc- 
tion of one formed some years ago at Stoke Newington. We were invited to consider 
that the bursts of soft sunny weather that occur in February and March cause wall-trees 
to move prematurely, and the consequence is that having made a brilliant start the 
frosts that follow sweep the crop away. A late spring, and the non-occurrence of 
frost in the latter part of May, are the conditions on which we chiefly depend for 
a good fruit crop. Now, said the lecturer, if we could turn the walls round so as 
to keep the trees dormant during those bursts of genial weather that characterize our 
March, 
