284 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF TAEIS. [Chap. XYIIL 



just above the surface of the p^round, to prevent the Apple grafted 

 on the Paradise from throwing out its own roots and consequently 

 becoming useless for such a mode of training. The trees should 

 never be fixed down to wire or wall immediately after being planted, 

 but allowed to remain erect during their first winter and until 

 the sap is moving in them, when they may be tied down. Some 

 allow them to grow erect for a whole year before tying them down. 

 They should in all cases be allowed to settle well into the ground 

 before being tied to anything. For general plantings, the best 

 kind of plants to get are those known as " maidens," ^.e., erect 

 growing trees about a year from the graft. These can be readily 

 trained down to the wire, or to the wall, in spring. In training 

 the young tree, the point with its growing shoot of the current 

 year should always be allowed to grow, so that the sap will flow 

 equably through the plant, drawn on by the rising shoot at its 

 end. To allow gross shoots to rise at any other parts of the tree 

 is to spoil all prospect of success. If the tree does not break 

 regularly into buds, it must be forced to do so by making incisions 

 before dormant eyes. 



A chief point is not to pinch too closely or too soon. The first 

 stopping of the year is the most important one, and the first 

 shoots should not be pinched in too young, but when the wood 

 is a little firm, so that the lower eyes at the bases of the leaves 

 may not break soon after the operation. Stopping should be 

 done at six leaves, as the object is not to have a mere stick for the 

 cordon, but a dense bushy array of fruit-spurs quite a foot or 

 more in diameter when the leaves are on in summer. All the 

 after-pinching of the year may be shorter, and as the object is to 

 regularly furnish the line, the observant trainer will vary his 

 tactics to secure that end — in one place he will have to repress 

 vigour, in another to encourage it. About three general stoppings 

 during the summer will suffice, but at all times when a strong 

 " water shoot " shows itself well above the mass of fruitful ones, 

 it should be pinched in, though not too closely. In some of our 

 nurseries may be seen " cordons " with every shoot allowed to 

 rise up like a willow wand — utterly neglected and on the wrong 

 stock. 



As the Paradise keeps its roots quite near the surface of the 

 ground, spreading an inch or two of half decomposed manure over 



