PRUNING AND TRAINING. 533 



face, than in pits dug into it. There is no point of more importance 

 than shallow trenching and shallow planting in cold wet soils, in 

 which deep pits and deep pulverization only serve to aggravate the 

 natural evils of moisture and cold." A good mode of planting on 

 such soils is to form ridges of litter about three or four feet high, 

 quite above the natural level, and plant the trees on these continuous 

 mounds, as they may be termed. 



Mode of Bearing, Pruning, and Training. The apple bears inva- 

 riably on the old wood, often on that of the preceding year, and the 

 blossoms continue being produced from terminal and lateral spurs, or 

 short robust shoots, for a great number of years. These spurs require 

 to be thinned out when they become crowded, to be shortened when 

 they become too long, and to be cut in when they become so old as to 

 produce smaller fruit than is desirable. 



The treatment of spurs is that part of the pruning of the apple when 

 trained against walls or espaliers, on which the production of fruit 

 chiefly depends, and it requires greater skill and care than any other 

 part of the pruning. For this reason, and as the spur-pruning of the 

 apple corresponds exactly with the spur-pruning of the pear against 

 walls or espaliers, and in a great measure also with that of all other fruit 

 trees that bear on spurs, we shall enter into it here at some length, 

 as this will save repetition in treating of the pear, cherry, plum, apri- 

 cot, mulberry, and even the gooseberry and currant. We shall com- 

 mence with an apple-tree one year grafted, just taken from a nursery 

 and planted at the base of a wall or espalier-rail. We shall give the 

 winter and summer pruning for ten years, commencing every year 

 with the beginning of the winter pruning, which should always be per- 

 formed as early in the winter as possible. We have supposed the 

 tree to be trained in the horizontal manner, but the mode of treating 

 the spurs is equally applicable to every other kind of training, and to 

 standard trees or bushes as well as to those against walls or espa- 

 liers. We quote the substance of this article from the ' Gardener's 

 Magazine,' vol. iii. 



8 purring -in Pruning. First Year. Winter Pruning. The tree is 

 headed down before it begins to push ; in doing which, the foot is 

 placed upon the soil, and close to the bole, in order to prevent it from 

 being drawn up by the force which is used in the operation. The cut 

 is made in a sloping direction towards the wall, and about half an inch 

 above the bud which is selected for the leading shoot. The tree is 

 cut down so that seven buds remain. 



Summer Pruning. If all the buds push (which will generally be the 

 case), they are all permitted to grow until they have attained three 

 inches in length, when two of them are rubbed off ; those rubbed off 

 are the third and fourth buds, counting upwards from the origin of 

 the tree. The uppermost shoot is trained straight up the wall for a 

 leading stem, and the remaining four horizontally along the wall, two 

 on each side the stem of the tree. These shoots are trained nine 

 inches apart, for when they are much nearer than this they exclude 

 the sun and air from operating upon the buds and wood in such a 



