540 THE APPLE. 



than top-cutting, to induce and maintain a fruitful state. Under this 

 treatment and close summer pinching, but very little winter pruning is 

 needed by apple-trees trained as espaliers, bushes, or pyramids. 



Pruning, with reference to the entire tree, should have for its object 

 to admit tne light and air among the branches, to preserve the symmetry 

 of the head by causing it to spread equally, and in the same form 

 arid manner on every side, and to eradicate branches which are 

 diseased or decaying, In the case of espalier and wall trees it may 

 frequently become necessary to shorten a portion of the roots in order 

 to lessen the vigour of the branches, and throw them into a fruit- 

 bearing state ; and the same treatment may occasionally be required 

 for dwarfs, and conical trees on dwarfing stocks ; but it can seldom or 

 never be either necessary or desirable for standards, which require the 

 aid of long ramose roots to enable them to resist high winds ; and 

 their roots as well as their heads having abundant space for extension, 

 a due equilibrium is preserved between them. Most trees and shrubs, 

 whether fruit- bear ing, ornamental, or merely useful, require a certain 

 degree of pruning in summer, as well.as in autumn or spring. The 

 object of summer pruning, in all standards and bushes, ought to be to 

 stop or to thin out shoots of the current year, in order the better to 

 admit the sun and air to mature, by means of the leaves, the shoots 

 which remain. The shoots, so stopped or removed, may either be 

 cut or stopped to one or two buds with a view to forming spurs, or cut 

 close off, according as there may or may not be room for the spurs to 

 be developed. In the case of trees on walls, espaliers, or trained as 

 dwarfs, or cones, it is not desirable to add much strength to the root, 

 and therefore most of the summer shoots should be shortened early in 

 the season by pinching out their points with the finger and thumb, 

 when they are only a few inches in length, repeating this operation when 

 the shoot, thus shortened, has again developed its last or farthest bud. 

 At the same time, wherever shoots are wanted to complete the form 

 or dimensions of the tree, or when it is desirable to add strength to 

 the stem or the root, there the branches should be left at their full 

 length to be laid in, shortened, or cut out, at the autumnal or winter's 

 pruning, as may be found most desirable. The apple against a wall 

 or espalier is almost always trained in the horizontal manner - } it is 

 better adapted for dwarfs than any other fruit tree, and the mode of 

 training these, as well as of forming coaes, has been already described. 

 Other modes of training have likewise been fully illustrated in our 

 chapters on training espaliers, cordons, &c. 



Gathering and Keeping. All apples intended to be kept for some 

 weeks or months, should be gathered by hand and carried to the fruit- 

 room in baskets. Table apples should be spread out singly on shelves, 

 or packed in sand, fern, or kiln-dried straw, or in jars with any of these 

 materials ; but kitchen sorts may be laid in layers on shelves, or on a 

 cool floor. The common mode of keeping, by those who grow apples 

 in large quantities for the market, is to lay them in heaps in cool dry 

 cellars, and cover them with abundance of straw. In some parts of Eng- 

 land they are preserved in ridges, the apples being laid on, and covered 



