36 



Pruning. 



Vol. XII 



with a knife. In pruning in summer, the 

 necessary supply of regular shoots left for 

 training in, should never be shortened during 

 this season, unless to particular shoots, to fill 

 a vacancy; for, by a general shortening in 

 this season, all the shoots so treated would 

 soon push again vigorously from every eye, 

 and render the tree a thicket of useless 

 wood. Therefore, all sorts, whether they 

 require shortening in the winter pruning or 

 not, should, in the summer dressing, be laid 

 in at full length; but towards the end of 

 August, the extreme points may be pinched 

 off with great advantage. The sap is thus 

 made to complete the growth of the shoot, 

 and not to increase its length ; and it is too 

 late in the season for fresh shoots to be in- 

 duced. 



Summer pruning is a most necessary ope- 

 ration. Young shoots require thinning to 

 preserve the beauty of the trees and encour- 

 age the fruit; and the sooner it is performed 

 the better. It is, therefore, advisable to be- 

 gin this work in May, or early in June, re- 

 moving all superfluous growths and ill placed 

 shoots, which may be performed with consi- 

 derably more expedition and exactness than 

 when after the trees have shot a considerable 

 length. Where, however, a tree is inclined 

 to luxuriancy, it is proper to retain as many 

 of the regular shoots as can be commodiously 

 trained in with any regularity, in order to 

 divide and exhaust the too abundant sap. It 

 will be necessary to review the trees occa- 

 sionally, in order to reform such branches or 

 shoots as may have started from their places, 

 or taken a wrong direction ; also that, ac- 

 cordingly as any fresh irregular shoots pro- 

 duced since the general dressing may be 

 displaced ; and, likewise, as the already 

 trained shoots advanced in length, or pro- 

 ject from the wall or espalier, they should 

 be trained in close. 



In the winter pruning, a general regula- 

 tion must be observed, both of the mother 

 branches, and the supply of young wood laid 

 in the preceding summer; and the proper 

 time for this work is any time in open wea- 

 ther, from the fall of the leaf in November, 

 until March ; but the sooner the better. In 

 performing this work, it is proper to unnail 

 or loosen a chief part of the branches, par- 

 ticularly of peaches, nectarines, apricots, 

 vines, and other trees requiring an annual 

 supply of young wood. First look over all 

 the principal or mother branches, and exam- 

 ine if any are worn out, or not furnished 

 with parts proper for bearing fruit, and let 

 such branches be cut down to the great 

 branch from which they proceed, or to any 

 lower shoot or bottom part, leaving these to 

 supply its place. Likewise examine if any 



branches are become too long for the allotted 

 space, either at sides or top, and let them be 

 reformed accordingly, by shortening them 

 down to some lower shoot or branch properly 

 situated to supply the place, being careful 

 that every branch terminates in a young 

 shoot for a leader, and not stumped off at 

 the extremity. From the principal or larger 

 branches pass to the thoots of the year which 

 were trained up in summer, first cutting out 

 close all foreright and other irregular shoots 

 that may have been omitted in the summer 

 pruning; likewise all very weak shoots, and 

 those of very luxuriant growth, unless it be 

 necessary to keep some to supply a vacant 

 place. In this pruning, as in the summer 

 dressing, it is of importance to have a strict 

 eye to the lower parts of wall-trees, &c., to 

 see if there is any present vacancy, or any 

 that apparently will soon happen, in which 

 cases, if any good shoot is situated contigu- 

 ous, it should be trained in, either at full 

 length, or shorten it to a few eyes, to force 

 out two or more shoots, if they shall seem 

 necessary; for precaution should ever be ob- 

 served in taking care to have betimes a suffi- 

 cient stock of young wood coming forward 

 to fill up any casual vacancy, and substitute 

 a new set of branches in place of such as 

 are either decayed or stand in need of re- 

 trenchment. 



Sometimes in wall-trees and espaliers there 

 are many large disagreeable barren spurs, 

 consisting both of old worn out fruit spurs, 

 and of clusters of stumps of shortened shoots 

 projecting considerably from the branches, 

 occasioned by unskilful pruning, when re- 

 trenching the superabundant and irregular 

 shoots which, instead of being cut out close, 

 are stumped off to an inch or two long. At 

 this season of pruning, it is advi;>able to re- 

 form them as well as possible, by cutting all 

 the most disagreeable stumps close to the 

 branches, leaving these at full length, espe- 

 cially if apples, pears, &,c., and reserve an 

 occasional supply of young wood in different 

 parts, and thus, in two or three years, you 

 may reduce such trees to a regular figure 

 and a proper state of bearing. 



Too severe pruning is greaily prejudicial 

 to the health of some sorts of fruit. Plums 

 and cherries^ in particular, are often greatly 

 damaged by a too severe discipline of the 

 knife, these trees being very liable to gum 

 by large amputations. It is, therefore, of 

 importance to attend to these trees well in 

 the summer pruning, to retrench all the su- 

 perfluous and irregular shoots while quite 

 young, and pinch others occasionally where 

 wood is wanted to fill vacancies, so as to re- 

 quire but little pruning out of large wood in 

 winter. — Johnson's DicCry of Gardening. 



