REMARKS APPLICABLE TO FRUIT-TREES GENERALLY. 615 



excessive vigour is moderated by summer pruning, and this in a greater or 

 less degree according to the time and manner of performing the operation. 

 The longer the operation is deferred, and the less the portion cut off from 

 the shoots, the greater will be the strength which the roots will derive; and 

 the earlier and shorter the shoots are cut, the less will be the quantity of 

 foliage, and proportionally so the quantity of roots. Therefore, if a tree is 

 too vigorous, summer pruning should commence by disbudding such shoots 

 as they appear, as are not at all wanted to be retained for wood or spurs ; 

 and as soon as the shoots intended to produce fruit, spurs, or buds at their 

 base have become furnished with five buds, the extremity may be pinched 

 off. As many as five buds are mentioned, because fewer does not complete 

 one turn of the spiral, which may be traced by following the arrangement 

 of the buds on a shoot of such fruit-trees as are usually trained on walls. 

 In the course of a fortnight the uppermost buds on the portion left will have 

 commenced to push, arid they must be allowed to go on for a longer or 

 shorter time without stopping, according as there may be more or less danger 

 of the buds at the base being also developed into shoots, instead of remaining 

 in the character of a fruit-bud till next spring. If the roots, and, of course, 

 the tree generally, require to be invigorated, the shoots will not be so nume- 

 rous and may be allowed to extend till after Midsummer, and then only 

 shortened for a little at first, in order that as much foliage as is consistent 

 with the principles al)ove explained may be left to act. It is a very preva- 

 lent but no less erroneous notion, that, in the case of an over-vigorous tree, 

 as much wood should be retained, and as many shoots allowed to grow as is 

 possible, in order that its vigour may oe moderated by the expenditure. 

 Those who hold this opinion may r-est^assured that the more a young tree 

 grows, the more it is capable of growing ; for growth is not a mere evolu- 

 tion of parts already formed, evolved by a determinate amount of expansive 

 power. If ten buds give rise to a hundred others, these last have the power 

 of originating, in the same ratio, one thousand, and so on, as long as force of 

 sap towards new formations is undiminished." All shoots under half an inch 

 in diameter, cut from the side of a stem before Midsummer, will generally heal 

 over the same season. Terminal wounds made by shortening, will not heal 

 over till a shoot has been produced, the base of which will cover the wound. 

 The fruit-bearing shoots of all trees, in a natural state, are chiefly such 

 as are lateral, while the wood of the tree is chiefly increased by the 

 vertical shoots ; hence some modification of lateral training will, in 

 almost every case, be found preferable to training vertically. Lateral roots 

 are also those which contribute most to fruit-bearing wood ; and tap or 

 deep-growing roots to upright and barren wood. All restraint imposed 

 on trees, whether by training, root-pruning, or ringing the branches, if 

 not followed up by art, will speedily end in dis'figuring the tree and rendering 

 it unfruitful, till it has assumed its natural form and habit of growth ; and if 

 the tree should be of a species so tender as not to ripen fruit in its natural 

 form as a standard, it will by assuming that form have become useless as a 

 fruit tree. In the case of all trees in a state of culture, and more especially 

 such as grow in soil the surface of which is heated more than that of the 

 general surface of the locality, as is the case of a border exposed to the 

 reverberation of the sun's rays in front of a south wall, artificial supplies of 

 water are necessary at particular seasons, and water therefore must be con- 

 sidered as much an element of culture as manure. All the diseases of fruit 



