MAY] THE FRUIT GARDEN. 399 



ESPALIERS. 



All unnecessary, ill-placed, and fore-right shoots on espalier trees 

 of every kind, should now be rubbed off or cut away ; they are only 

 robbers, and should consequently be discarded; but in doing this 

 discretion ought to be observed, and an abundant supply left to fur- 

 nish the trees and to discharge such parts of the ascending juices as 

 are not convertible into wood or fruit. 



Apples, pears, plums, and cherries, continue bearing many years 

 on the same spurs or branches, and do not require such a general 

 annual supply of young wood as peaches, nectarines, &c., which 

 always, with very few exceptions, produce their fruit from the pre- 

 ceding year's shoots: yet a sufficiency should be left to train in be- 

 tween the main branches, and a leading or terminal one to each branch, 

 unless the tree has already extended as far as you desire ; for it is 

 essentially requisite to leave a sufficient number of the best placed 

 shoots to choose from in the general winter pruning. The shoots 

 now preserved should be trained in regularly to the espalier at full 

 length, for the reasons assigned in the winter pruning; see the Fruit 

 Garden in January. 



Where there is any great vacancy it is proper, towards the latter 

 end of this month, to shorten some of the adjoining young shoots of 

 the year to three or four buds, to cause them to produce a supply of 

 lateral branches to fill the vacant places. 



Young wall and espalier trees that are advancing in a training 

 state should also be attended to now, in their early shooting, to dis- 

 place the improper and ill-placed growths, and retain all the well- 

 placed shoots, both for an additional supply of branches in the 

 general formation of the trees and to form future bearers for produc- 

 tion of fruit. 



THINNING OF FRUIT. 



Apricot, peach, and nectarine trees, in favorable seasons, some- 

 times set superabundant crops of fruit often in thick clusters, and in 

 greater quantities than they can supply with a sufficiency of nourish- 

 ment, and which, if suffered to remain, would not only be poor and 

 miserable but would so exhaust the trees as to render it impossible 

 for them to produce good and sufficient shoots capable of bearing 

 any tolerable quantity of fruit the ensuing season, or perhaps ever 

 after. 



Therefore let them now be thinned, leaving only a good, moderate, 

 regular crop on each tree; and the sooner it is done the better, both 

 for the trees and remaining fruit, always leaving the best placed and 

 most promising. 



The young fruit that are thinned off are excellent for tarts, &c., 

 particularly the apricots; but the others are also very good for that 

 purpose. 



Some people will consider this a very disagreeable task, both on 

 account of casting away so many fruit, which they might think would 

 do very well, and also on account of the time spent in performing 



