THE APPLE. 



141 



had large orchards, told me that the fruit was improved in quality 

 by thinning the boughs to let the light and air to the branches. The 

 hollow bowls on Paradise stocks require scarcely any pruning ; but exu- 

 berant shoots should be plucked in midsummer and cut out in winter. 



In some seasons, and in some seasons only, my apple-trees have 

 been affected with a blasting of the leaves. The disease appears with 

 a south-west wind, and especially when the winds blow strong and 

 cold, as they often do when the leaves are young and tender in 

 early summer. This disease especially attacks the Siberian Crab. 

 We have found the best remedy is to lift the trees and give them 

 some good top spit loam. An attack of this disease is damaging to 

 the tree not only in the season of the attack, but also to the 

 following crop. (See Fungi.) 



Our apple-trees are growing in three forms. Some, as standards 

 (fig. 219), have a straight stock six feet high, on which the desired 



FIG. 220. Hollow Bowl Apple-bush 



FIG. 219 Standard Apple. 



kind is grafted and spreads out with branches. Standards are generally 

 grown in paddocks, and therefore ought to be so high that a horse or 

 cow cannot reach the fruit. In our garden we generally grow them 

 as bushes, or rather as hollow bowls (fig. 220). There is a third mode 

 of training which is also useful in a garden, the espalier (fig. 221), 

 which occupies but little room. When air and light can act upon 

 every branch, an espalier grows very fine fruit. Upon the whole, I 

 greatly prefer the bush worked upon the Paradise stock wherever (as 



