PRUNING STANDARD TREES. . 195 



kept in mind in pruning the fig ; it bears large foliage, and 

 consequently the branches require a larger space than those of 

 most other trained fruit-trees. But this space cannot be provided 

 by the mere cutting away of supernumerary branches ; such 

 treatment would have a directly contrary tendency, and if the 

 trees manifest any disposition to produce too many branches 

 for the space, there is no alternative but checking them by 

 pruning the roots. 



Standard Trees. — This part of the gardener's duty is too 

 often neglected. The orchard is mowed at a proper time, 

 because it is the business of the farm ; but as to the trees, in 

 too many instances, the gardener only looks at them when in 

 bloom to see what prospect there is of a crop ; and, occasion- 

 ally, as the crops advance, to see how far his hopes are likely 

 to be realized ; this is all the attention that many orchards get, 

 except the gathering of the fruit. As in the case of wall- 

 fruit-trees, the son the trees are in settles the question about 

 the quantity and the nature of the attention required. A 

 newly-planted orchard requires pruning to compensate for the 

 loss of roots ; and if tliis is judiciously done, the heads of the 

 trees form as they ought, and an examination in the autumn 

 will show us how far the knife may be authorized to remove 

 useless, weakly, and unprofitable shoots that tend to damage 

 better ones, fill up the head, and exclude the light and air. 

 But if this can be done profitably with a young orchard, how 

 necessary does it become in an old one, which may have been 

 neglected for years, until scarcely a tree can do justice to the 

 fruit it produces. In many of these old orchards the trees 

 have so degenerated that the sorts of ' fruit can scarcely be 

 recognised. The pruning in this case is a laborious task, for 

 nothing will do but reducing the heads considerably. The 

 first object is to remove all the branches that are most 

 decayed or cankered ; next, all those which are most straggling, 

 and in the way of those who have to walk about the ground ; 

 then we may look to those which cross one another, or crowd 

 one another, and of these remove the worst, or the one that 

 can be best spared, so as to leave the remainder of the tree in 

 the best form and order. If, after this, we can head down 

 some of the tallest, we may hope for better growth and crops. 

 If the heads are choked up, as we often find them, with little 

 brush-wood, that is to say, their weakly shoots, clear them all 

 away, so that you leave the heads free and open. But standard 



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