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of the cultivator may dictate. In the mean 

 time, the side shoots should be pruned into 

 the desired conical form, each spring, or, what 

 is considered by some preferable, they should 

 be kept shortened : in, by pinching off their 

 ends in the summer. This is Down ing's 

 plan, described almost in his own words. 

 We have found a simpler mode of operating 

 to answer every purpose that is, to shorten- 

 in the leader and side shoots, in the spring on- 

 ly, of each year. We should continue this 

 process, as with the peach, every year so long 

 as the tree continued to make scions, cutting 

 off from one-fourth to three-fourths of the 

 length of each scion every year, always 

 having an eye to improve, and as far as pos- 

 sible to render conical the form of the tree. 

 To this end we should as we have said be- 

 fore always cut just above a wood-bud, on the 

 outer side of a limb or twig i. e., the side 

 farthest from the central parts of the tree. 



From two to four feet is a sufficient length 

 for the lowest tier of branches ; the next tier 

 should be four to eight inches shorter, and so 

 on. Where the dwarf has not been pruned 

 for two or three years from the graft, the first 

 heading-in must be done more severely, in 



