PRODUCE OP SOME CORDONS. 37 



with these long and short shoots, two, three, and four to each ; 

 and as I said before, remembering to have a lesif-bud at every 

 extremity, and to keep half short for wood, and half long for 

 fruit, how can any one fail to have fruitful trees ? This is all 

 the care required for the spurs and growths on them, remem- 

 bering that if the long shoots in summer, from their very- 

 length, grow to seven or eight inches long, they have always 

 the corresponding short shoots on the opposite leaders ; and 

 as these may not extend beyond some five inches, one will fit 

 into the other. At any rate it is of no matter, for after this 

 experience a man must be dull indeed who could not manage 

 to get his wood compact and short somewhere. There is no 

 danger of not having superabundant shoots of all kinds, and 

 you can cut them clean out of the spur whenever you like ; 

 besides, they may have grown into two shoots, as many do, 

 immediately from the leader itself, and then you have abun- 

 dance of room. Let my readers be assured of all this, and 

 practice it fearlessly : " cut boldly and fear not." As Mr. 

 Rivers says of potted trees, " Any one can manage them ;" 

 and I daresay any lady could manage a Diagonal Cordon 

 easily and successfully after reading these instructions. 



As to the getting the tliird leader to grow, it is now easily 

 seen ; and when the three leaders are fully grown, all that is 

 required is to allow a foot or two of the extremities, as in 

 vines, to grow upwards, and then to bend them downwards 

 gradually, and cut them off in the autumn. This exhausts 

 the superfluous sap, and keeps the upper shoots fruitful. 

 Nevertheless, I must beg to say that it is the lower shoots that 

 are likely to languish first, and therefore they must not be 

 too rigorously pinched in, but rather favored, and rested from 

 time to time. The finest fruit will be near the top, which 

 proves the abundance of the sap and juices at that part. 



A Belle Beauce peach in my own orchard-house bore thirty- 

 two fine peaches on the leaders A and B, but of course the 

 top of A was not very ripe, and half of B was quite youthful. 

 Eeine des Vergers, which bore early in August, had twenty 

 splendid peaches, all on the lower part of A, it being in the 



