PRUNING WALLFRUIT-TREES AND ESPALIERS. 187 



or, in other words, want three or four shoots where only one 

 is coming, instead of waiting till the autumn, to cut back 

 such a branch, pinch the top out as soon as it has advanced 

 as many leaves as you want shoots ; for you may stop it at 

 the fii'st j)air of leaves, or after it has made three or four, 

 according to what you require. 



It is a safe conclusion, that pruning retards fruit-bearing. 

 The argTiment on behalf of the knife is, that it prepares the 

 tree to fill up its given space in a proper manner, and perma- 

 nently benefits it ; but the knife will do nothing that cannot 

 be done with disbudding and pinching out, only that the latter 

 mode requires constant watching, until the growth for the 

 season is adjusted or fairly set in, and even then an occasional 

 examination is required, to see that no fresh growth has started 

 where it is not wanted. Every time a tree is pruned, a more 

 vigorous growth of the remaining parts is a natural conse- 

 quence, and vigorous growth is always against bearing. We 

 adopt the disbudding system, and rarely shorten the branches, 

 for at the ends are the most fruit-bearing shoots; and, instead 

 of allowing hundreds of httle branches to form so much brush- 

 wood all over the tree, we rub off the buds before thy make 

 any progress, and only leave them to grow where we want 

 shoots. These remarks apply chiefly to wall and espalier 

 trees ; but the same general principles apply to standards, so 

 far as we can carry them out. It would be a work of time to 

 go over a standard tree to disbud it, but it would be all the 

 better for the process, and save after pruning. 



There has been a good deal written upon the subject of 

 pruning, and if an unpractised man reads it all, he will leave 

 off" perfectl}^ satisfied that authors contradict each other ; that 

 they hardly agree upon general principles, and that he is 

 none the wiser for all he has read. One is all for the knife, 

 another for no knife where it can any how be done without ; 

 one for horizontal training, another for the fan-shape ; and in 

 Abercrombie's " Every Man his own Gardener " may be seen 

 more than a score shapes into which a tree may be tortured, 

 all very seriously recommended by somebody. It seems to 

 us that we can never err much in following nature's general 

 rules, and beginning with the lowest branches horizontal, 

 proceed with the other branches a little sloping upwards, and 

 completing with the fan ; but we do not hold with any set 

 figure; the great object is to fill the walls weU, because as 



