532 TEE APPLE. 



commonly grafted the third or fourth spring from the seed, when they 

 are from half an inch to one inch in thickness. Both dwarfs and 

 standards are commonly grafted within a few inches of the ground, 

 and the standards are formed by encouraging the leading shoot, which 

 is commonly cut over at the end of the second year at the height ot 

 five or six feet from the ground, and after it has grown another season 

 in the nursery, the side-shoots being cut off about midsummer, it is fit 

 for being transplanted to where it is finally to remain. If the tree 

 should not be sold or transplanted the first year after the head is 

 formed, the shoots are shortened, technically "headed in," to one or 

 two buds, and this operation is repeated every spring till the plant is 

 sold or transplanted to where it is finally to remain. The same 

 heading-in takes place with dwarfs, the reason in both cases being that 

 it is desirable to have no more wood left on the tree than the root, 

 after undergoing the mutilation consequent on transplanting, can 

 readily support. This severe heading-in is likewise practised to 

 economize space. But it is less practised than it used to be, as the 

 demand has increased for trained trees alike as standards, dwarfs, 

 espaliers, cordons, bushes, and pyramids ; consequently instead of the 

 usual heading back in the winter, summer training and pinching is 

 adopted to form the trees into shape and produce early fruitfulness. 

 The more frequently trees are transplanted in the nursery before being 

 finally removed, the greater will be the number of their fibrous roots ; 

 and as these must necessarily be within a limited space, the quantity 

 of nourishment they take up will be limited also. Hence by their 

 number of fibrous roots, they will suffer little from removal, while by 

 the concentration of these roots they will only absorb the nourishment 

 obtained within a very limited space, and thus keep the tree dwarf, 

 and throw it early into a fruit-bearing state, or at least prevent it 

 from growing so vigorously as if it were furnished with a number of 

 ramose roots, which by extending their fibres to a distance have a 

 proportionately greater command of nourishment. Hence maiden 

 plants one year grafted on free stocks that have not been transplanted, 

 are to be preferred in every case in which the object is large and vigo- 

 rous trees ; and when the object is dwarf trees, plants on dwarfing stocks, 

 such as the Doucin or Paradise that have been several times trans- 

 planted, should be chosen. 



Soil and Situation. The apple-tree acquires the largest dimensions 

 in a deep strong loam, or marly clay, on a rocky bottom, or on 

 a subsoil that is not retentive of moisture, and in a situation which is 

 neither very high nor very low. "It will grow tolerably well in any 

 common soil, neither extremely sandy, gravelly, nor clayey, on a dry 

 subsoil, and with a free exposure. On wet subsoil, it will do no good ; 

 but, after being planted a few years, will become cankered, and get 

 covered with moss. Where fruit trees must be planted on such soils, 

 they should first be rendered as dry as possible by under-draining ; 

 next, provision made for carrying off the rain-water by surface- 

 gutters ; and lastly, the ground should not be trenched above a foot 

 deep, and the trees planted rather in hillocks of earth, above the sur- 



