FAN OR PALMETTE TRAINING. 168 FAN OR PALMETTE TRAINING. 



wires strained on posts, and on rows of 

 stakes in the same straight line, usually 

 spoken of in this country as espaliers, 

 although this term is applied by the 



FIG. I. PALMETTE OK FAN BEFORE COM- 

 MENCEMENT OF TRAINING. 



French to trees trained on any plane sur- 

 face, whether it be solid, as in the case of 

 the wall, or a skeleton surface only, as with 

 strained wires and slakes in rows. After j 

 the pyramid form, there is no better mode j 

 of training apples in gardens, as the apple- j 

 tree is usually impatient of training against : 

 a wall. The stakes, whether rough from j 

 the coppice or hedgerow, with the bark on, 

 or of timber I inch square, well planed up 

 and painted, are driven into the ground at 

 equal distances, and capped or not at 

 pleasure by a horizontal rail at the top to 

 steady them. The tree is planted in the 

 centre of the space allotted to it, and it is 

 then trained in the way about to be de- 

 scribed, so that lateral branches may be 

 induced to run at regular intervals in hori- 

 zontal lines at right angles to the stem. 

 The same style of horizontal training is 

 often adapted for pear-trees on walls and 

 on the sides of buildings. 



In the Palmette or Fan system, what- 

 ever may be the direction that the branches 



are ultimately compelled to assume, the 

 system of training to be carried out in the 

 infancy of the tree, so to speak, is the 

 same. The tree is subjected to this train- 

 ing when it has attained a central stem 

 and two lateral branches, as in Fig. I. In 

 the autumn or winter pruning of the follow- 

 ing year, the two side branches are trained 

 horizontally, as in Fig. 2, and pruned back 

 to about two-thirds of their length, with a 

 bud immediately below the cut. The stem 

 itself is pruned back to about 18 inches 

 above the side branches, taking care that 

 there are three buds immediately below the 

 cut one on each side, well placed, and a 

 third in front to continue the stem. With 

 the fall of the leaf in the following year the 

 tree will be as represented in Fig. 3, with 

 two horizontal shoots, a central stem, and 

 two other untrained side shoots. When 

 the pruning season arrives, the same pro- 

 cess of cutting back takes place, each of 

 the new side shoots being cut back to two- 

 thirds of its length, the two lower branches 

 to two-thirds of the year's growth, and the 

 stem to within 18 inches of the second pair 

 of laterals, leaving three well-placed buds 

 immediately below, as before, to continue 

 a third pair of side branches and the stem. 

 It will be seen at once that this is the 

 treatment required to induce the horizontal 

 growth for apples and pears for walls and 



FIG. 2. FIRST PRUNING OF PALMETTE OR FAN. 



espaliers, as shown in Fig. 4, while Fig. 2 

 represents the commencement of a tree 

 trained on the fan system, with this ex- 

 ception, that the lowermost branches on 



