88 



a peach happened to pass the winter under a 

 snow-drift. This branch would show a beau.- 

 tiful festoon of fruit, the following summer, 

 while all the rest of the tree, having dropped 

 its frozen blossom-buds, would remain through 

 the season, like the fig-tree of the parable, 

 having " nothing thereon but leaves only." 



Instead of only two arms, the Russians, 

 with equal success, sometimes plant the tree 

 in open ground away from a wall, and train 

 similar arms out in every direction, like the 

 spokes of a horizontal wheel, tying them down 

 thus to trellises made for the purpose. The 

 apple, the plum, the cherry have been, and 

 perhaps all fruits might be cultivated in this 

 way. A reflecting mind will easily <take 

 hints from these practices, and vary the mode 

 of operating to suit the circumstances of any 

 tree that it may be desirable to subject to such 

 or a similar regimen. This mode of training 

 has other advantages. The fruit is less 

 exposed to the wind, the trees also come 

 earlier into bearing, and it has been noticed 

 that they are less persecuted by insects. 



2. Training of Standard Trees. In 

 Chapter Vth, (on Pruning^) we have given 



