PRUNING. 45 



SUBS. 4th. PARTICULAR MODES OF PRUNING AND 

 TRAINING. Mr. Dalbret, superintendent of the compart- 

 ments in the Royal Gardens, devoted to the culture of 

 fruit trees and economical plants, (near Paris,) has deliv- 

 ered a course of lectures on Pruning, in the school of 

 Practical Horticulture. He has practised on his theory 

 for a number of years, and is therefore enabled to appre- 

 ciate its value. "Among the operations which are very 

 rarely practised, and which are scarcely known at a dis- 

 tance from the capital, he has insisted, with propriety, upon 

 the eradication of all useless buds, which occasion more 

 vigor in the branches destined to produce good wood and 

 fruit ; and upon the necessity of not leaving too many late- 

 ral shoots or twigs, which exhaust the tree ; but few should 

 be preserved for yielding fruit each year, and the others 

 should be cut off within a half an inch of the branch, which 

 will cause fruit spurs to appear. He has also demonstrated 

 the utility of pinching or cutting off the ends of the shoots, 

 particularly of stone-fruit trees, to check the excessive 

 vigor of the main branches, and to cause the branches 

 which usually consume the sap, to yield fruit ; the opera- 

 tion consists in cutting off the yet herbaceous, or young 

 and tender shoots, when they have attained the length of 

 six or eight inches, at a half an inch, or at most an inch, 

 above the old wood ; if it is done later, the operation will 

 be injurious, instead of insuring fruit for the third year." 

 [New England Farmer, Vol. vm. This article is from 

 the researches of the If on. H. A. S. Dearborn, and from 

 the Annales d? Horticulture.] For some further particu- 

 lars, see CURRANT. Also see PEACH. 



During the autumn of 1840, and while at Paris, I occa- 

 sionally visited the GARDEN op PLANTS, where I saw^he 

 whole system of pruning as practised by Mr. Dalbret him- 

 self. The pear trees at that place are trained in perfect 

 quenouilles or pyramids, with branches quite to the 

 ground, and by the system of spur pruning. By this sys- 

 tem the tree is only suffered to advance upwards in propor- 

 tion to its growth in a lateral direction. Thus pyramidally 

 trained, a tree will retain its branches in a vigorous 

 state, quite to the ground, as all the lateral shoots receive 

 an equal benefit from the sun, and rain, and dews, and the 

 tree produces abundant crops, from the summit to the base. 

 By other modes of training, the lower limbs are liable to 



