PRUNING WALLFRUIT-TREES AND ESPALIERS. 189 



appreciation of fruit : so that the grape be a good colour, the 

 larger the bunch or the berry, the better the judges seem to 

 hke it; a position, however, that we invariably oppose, and 

 will, wherever we have a voice, settle by flavour. We have 

 often said there is no merit in exciting an unnatural growth; 

 nothing is much more easy than to grow for si^e only, but it 

 is one of those propensities which we do not approve, where 

 it can only be had at the expense of a better quality. We 

 are convinced that in the long run natural growth, in natural 

 soil, if it be at all congenial, will always best suit the amateur; 

 and natural training, with no more knifework than is abso- 

 lutely necessary, will be found the most easy to understand, 

 and least difficult to manage. We have in another place given 

 our notions upon fruit-borders ; and if we could command all 

 the exciting soils and manures in the kingdom, we should use 

 none of them in an ordinary border for fruit-trees. 



The proper training and management — for, as we have be- 

 fore explained, the less pruning the better — may be reduced 

 *o general principles, which may be, we think, easily under- 

 stood. Our first object is to cover the wall with bearing, 

 healthy wood ; therefore, whether we begin with a tree that 

 has been on the wall and neglected, or a new one, it is safe 

 practice to train dovra. the lowest branches horizontally, or, if 

 they start at some distance from the ground, bring the ends 

 as near the bottom of the wall as a few inches, and bring 

 do^vn the next as near to them as will only allow of the 

 bearing-shoots to grow between, and so on with other useful 

 and available branches, for as there is no fear of the upper 

 part being filled by ulterior growth, we have to furnish the 

 wall as low as we can, because branches will not grow down- 

 wards to fill that out, though there will be no difficulty in 

 furnishing all above. Our next business is to watch the bud- 

 drug, and wherever the wall has room for a shoot, let the best 

 bud for the purpose be allowed to grow, but rub all others 

 off. It is of no use letting shoots grow for the purpose of cut- 

 ting them off hereafter. If in any part of the wall there is 

 room for two or three shoots, and there is only one bud, take 

 the top out of the shoot it makes, as soon as there are two pair 

 of leaves, and from the four shoots thus produced use what 

 you require, but stop the one you do not require as soon as 

 you can after it starts ; but if you want only two or three 

 shoots out of four or five, it may be worth while to give time 



