106 FRUIT GARDEN. 



length will depend on their individual vigor, and the luxu- 

 riance of the tree. The buds, which are generally double, 

 or rather two together, with a fruit bud between them, 

 seldom occur quite close to the insertion of the shoot. 

 Perhaps two or three pairs are left with a wood bud at 

 the point to afford a growing shoot, in order to act as its 

 lungs, for it is necessary that there should be leaves above 

 the fruit. The extent of thinning of the fruit must depend 

 on the vigor of the tree ; a pair of fruit to each square 

 foot of wall being an average allowance. When the fruit 

 begins to swell, the point of this leading shoot is pinched 

 off, that it may not drain away the sap. Any young shoot 

 from the wood-eyes at the base of the bearing branch is 

 carefully preserved, and in the following winter it takes 

 the place of the branch which has borne fruit, and is cut 

 out. If there be no young shoot below, and the bearing 

 branch be short, the shoots at the point of the latter are 

 pruned for fruit ; but this must be done cautiously; and 

 if the bearing branch be long, it is better to cut it back for 

 young wood. It is the neglect of this which constitutes 

 the principal error of the English fan system as it is usual- 

 ly practiced. Several times during summer the trees are 

 regularly examined : the young shoots are respectively 

 topped and thinned out : those that remain are nailed to 

 the wall, or braced in with pieces of peeled willow, and the 

 whole trees are occasionally washed with the force-pump. 

 The Montr ucil form is described at length in the Horti- 

 cultural Tour, p. 249, or in the Cal. Hort. Mem., vol. iv. 

 p. 145. The principal feature constitutes the great princi- 

 ple of all French training, the suppression of the direct 

 channel of the sap. Four, more commonly two, mere 

 branches are so laid to the wall that the central angle con- 



