HORTICULTUEAL PROCESSES. Yl 



"When the object of pruning is to promote the growth or 

 improve the form of a tree, the operation is generally performed 

 in the winter or early in the spring. Some, however, recom- 

 mend pruning in May or June. 



XV.-TEAINING. 



In England, where fruit-trees generally are trained on walls 

 and trellises, this process requires much time and labor on the 

 part of the gardener. In this country it is hardly applied at 

 all, except to vines and pear-trees, and to the latter only occa- 

 sionally. The principal object of training is to produce from a 

 certain number of branches a larger quantity of fruit than 

 would grow on them if left in their natural state. This is 

 effected by spreading and bending the branches so as to form 

 numerous depositions of the returning sap, aided, where the 

 tree is trained against a wall, by the shelter and reflected heat 

 which the latter affords. 



Directions for training the grapevine will be given under its 

 proper head. 



A new mode of training fruit-trees, practiced in the north 

 of Eussia, is well deserving of trial in the colder parts of New 

 England, especially for cultivating the peach. A tree, one year 

 from the graft, is headed down to two healthy, strong wood- 

 buds. These are trained horizontally, about ten or twelve 

 inches from the ground, to a south wall — perhaps the north 

 side of a wall might do quite as well, in our more changeable 

 climate. These arms are suffered to throw up vertical shoots, 

 which become covered with fruit-spurs. These vertical shoots 

 are kept shortened-in, to a length of not more than about 

 one or two feet; and these, with the two horizontal arms 

 from which they spring, and the short trunk of about ten 

 to fourteen inches in length, constitute aU there is of the 

 tree above ground. The whole tree may be covered, through 

 the winter, with two feet or more of soil heaped over it, 

 with a deep bank of snow, or with straw, evergreen boughs, 

 or the like. 



