30 THE ORCHARD AND FRUIT GARDEN. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CULTURE OF FRUIT TREES. TRAINING. 



PRUNING and training go hand in hand. The knife in 

 the hand of the foreseeing pruner removes all that 

 would spread into unsightly growth, and spares the 

 buds and branches likely to grow in a direction to form 

 the tree to productiveness, uniformity, and beauty. 

 Thus the pruner does half the trainer's work, and leaves 

 him little but the finishing up with the hammer and 

 nails. As an education with a good foundation may 

 finish itself, so a tree well cut will shape itself: the 

 pruner's work is all-important, although that of the 

 trainer makes a good continuation. In speaking of the 

 culture of fruit trees, however, we cannot separate 

 pruning and training, since pruning very often is train- 

 ing (or reducing to shape, order, and productiveness) 

 prophetically. 



Training, or regulating the position of the branches 

 in fruit trees, has for its object both the free admission 

 of light and air, and encouraging productiveness by 

 turning the shoots aside from their upward growth. 

 Indifferent bearers will often be brought to bear well 

 by merely bending the branches downwards, or to a 

 right angle with the stem of the tree. The motion of 

 the branches in the wind, and their upward growth, 

 encourage free circulation of sap, whereas the develop- 

 ment of fruit requires its retention in the bearing 

 branches. On this account productiveness is often 

 created or improved by bending branches downwards, 

 and on this principle, also (as well as from the warmth 

 retained by a wall), training trees on walls or espaliers 

 is advantageous. 



A tree intended for training should be reduced to the 

 necessary order very early in life, by pruning it so that 



