PRUNING WALLFRUIT-TREES AND ESPALIERS. 191 



be made to fill the deficient space until the wall is full of 

 main branches, and you have only to regulate the bearing- 

 wood, by rubjjing off the buds where the shoots are not 

 wanted, and leaving them to grow where they are required. 

 But there is certainly an alternative that many prefer to the 

 laying dowTi of one branch a-year, and that is when the first 

 year the two lower branches are laid in as low as we can, to 

 cut down the centre to three eyes, by which two more 

 branches can be made instead of one, by sacrificing the centre 

 branch instead of using it for. one side. It is true that we 

 only get a pair of horizontal branches a-year by this plan, but 

 it is also true that the tree is matured as we go on, and there 

 is nothing to prevent us from enjoying the fruit in perfection, 

 though there may be less of it. Pruning is always necessary 

 at planting, but, as we have explained in the article planting, 

 this is to compensate for the loss of roots in the taking up of 

 the trees ; as, however, in the bustle of a nursery business 

 the growth of young trees is not always attended to as it 

 should be, pruning may be required to get the tree into a 

 proper form of growth at its first starting. This may apply 

 more to standards than to wallfruit-trees, because at most 

 nurseries the breaking buds are watched ; and although at 

 some they care for nothing but the single rod or shoot that 

 the bud naturally throws, there is some ground that will form 

 a moderate head the very first year, by the bud being stopped 

 when there are two pair of leaves, and the best three of the 

 four branches being allowed to grow. 



These general remarks wiU suffice to give a pretty good 

 idea of the pruning and training of the better kind of wall- 

 fruit-trees, and one point may be very generally kept in view 

 with advantage : wallfruit-trees growing wild, that is, un- 

 checked, and therefore too full of wood, may bear more fruit 

 in respect to numbers, but it mil be of inferior quality ; but of 

 the two evils, a tree had better have too little than too much 

 pruning, for we have known (and that where one might expect 

 better things) many trees pruned and trained year after year, 

 the branches shortened, and the trees kept neat by jobbing 

 gardeners, and the bearing of fruit was the exception instead 

 of the rule, and at the best but few were ever seen at all. 

 Our advice was once asked for in a case of the sort, and we 

 recommended the owner to let them go a year without using 

 the knife at all, but to lay in and fasten all the young wood 



