TRAINING AND SUPPORTING 91 



Another purpose in pruning is to secure symmetry in combination 

 with abundance of bloom. Those plants which bloom from the old 

 wood directly must of course be learned by observation and pruned 

 in a way not to lose this while serving other purposes. Some of these 

 are tip-bloomers and these must not be shortened but enforced by 

 reducing the number of shoots when they are crowding each other out 

 of light and air. 



These are but a few of many general considerations involved in 

 pruning. Their character, however, sufficiently indicates that pruning 

 is a process of original perception of facts about the particular plants 

 to be treated and original conception of ways to help them meet your 

 notion of what is their best performance. They can hardly be ex- 

 pected to abandon their natural purpose but they will serve yours 

 generously if you will think enough to issue intelligible orders. 



TRAINING. 



The term training is best applied to treatment of garden plants 

 which grow with artificial support of some kind. The purposes already 

 cited for pruning self-supporting plants hold also with those which are 

 trained and become even more important, possibly, from some points 

 of view. It is the writer's observation that prevalently in California 

 plants which require pruning are better served than those which re- 

 quire training but the discussion of that matter will be relegated to 

 the chapter on Vines. 



PLANT STAKES AND TIES. 



As pertaining to the support of all kinds of plants and therefore 

 desirable to discuss in this place once for all is the subject of plant 

 stakes and tying materials. 



The wooden stake, such as the amateur can point and paint in 

 quantity in his workshop on a rainy day, <are too- well-known to require 

 comment. Of a dark-green color they are very praiseworthy. Dark 

 green stakes with white tips are very neat but too artificial and con- 

 spicuous although they may be claimed to be simulacra of green plant- 

 stems, flower-tipped. 



For serviceability and inconspicuousness, the writer has found 

 nothing to compare with iron stakes made by cutting up small gas and 

 water pipe into lengths of three and four feet. Local plumbers 

 usually have old pipe from house repairs which they will sell at a 

 fraction of the cost of new pipe and since the fire of 1906, San Fran- 

 cisco has been a mine of such material which has become a specialty 

 with junk dealers. The writer has had four or five hundred old-pipe 

 stakes in use for fifteen years or more and they are still serviceable : being 

 pulled up and re-set as required. They can be driven into place, even in 



