FRUIT GARDEN. 233 



horticulturists were not slow in availing them- 

 selves, and, as in many similar cases, even abused 

 it ; for hence came the whole family of dwarfs and 

 monsters, so fashionable in the days of La Quinteny 

 and D'Andilly, and of which some specimens may yet 

 be found in different parts of Europe. However, as 

 experiments multiplied, and science and good taste 

 increased, a medium size, and forms less foreign 

 from vegetable nature than those of the lion and the 

 stag, the distaff and the urn, were brought into use, 

 and established as most proper for garden culture. 



In forming these (to which have been given the 

 names of the half standard, the pyramid, and the 

 espalier), the labour necessarily begins in the nur- 

 sery. The stock of the crab, the paradise, or the 

 quince, is grafted two, three, or four inches from 

 the earth, with the variety you wish to propagate. 

 In the spring of the second year after grafting, one 

 of two methods is employed to form the head ; ei- 

 ther by shortening the shoots which may have 

 pushed from the graft, or the graft itself to the third 

 or fourth eye from its root. In either case, a growth 

 of more vigorous shoots succeeds, from which you 

 select your main or leading branches ; always taking 

 care to reject those which are spongy and over- 

 grown, or feeble and wiry. 



The future management of the tree will necessa- 

 rily be regulated by its destination. If intended for 

 a standard, your labour will be principally confined 

 to the removal of dead or dying, and redundant 

 wood ; and " to the thinning and shortening the ex- 

 terior parts of the branches, so that the light may 

 everywhere penetrate into the head, without any- 

 where passing through it."* If, on the other hand,, 

 you mean that your tree shall be a pyramid, the or- 

 dinary mode of giving this form consists in making 

 the oldest and lowest branches the longest, and in 



* Encyclopaedia of Gardening. 

 U2 



