100 GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



large quantity of leaves from trees, under the pretext of aiding 

 the growth or ripening of fruits, for the leaves are the nourishing 

 organs, and the trees deprived of them cannot continue to grow, 

 neither can the fruit ; and the branches so stripped will have feeble, 

 ill-formed buds, which will, the following year, produce a weak 

 and sickly growth. 



6. " Where the buds of any shoot or branch do not develope 

 before the age of two years, they can only be forced into activity 

 by a very close pruning, and in some cases, as the peach, this even 

 will often fail. This last principle shows the importance of prun- 

 ing the main branches of espaliers particularly, so as to ensure 

 the development of the buds of their successive sections, and to 

 preserve well the side shoots thus produced, for without this, the 

 interior of the tree will become naked and unproductive, and 

 a remedy will be very difficult." 



If these principles and practices of pnining be carefully 

 studied in connection with the habits of growth and bear- 

 ing of the different fruit trees, pruning will be compara- 

 tively an easy matter. The mode of obtaining any par- 

 ticular form or character cannot fail to be perfectly plain 

 and simple ; yet no one need hope to accomplish, in all 

 things, the precise results aimed at, for even the most 

 skilful operator is sometimes disappointed : but those w^ho 

 give constant attention to their trees, will always discover 

 a failure in time to apply a remedy. 



I insist upon it, because I have been taught it by most 

 abundant experience, that the most unremitting watch- 

 fulness is necessary in conducting trees in particular 

 forms. It is not, by any means, labor that is required ; 

 but attention that the most delicate hand can perform, 

 fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, say three times a 

 week during active growth, will be sufficient to examine 

 every shoot on a moderate collection of garden trees ; for 

 the eye very soon becomes trained so well to the work, 

 that a glance at a tree w^ill detect the parts that are either 

 too strong or too weak, or that in any way require atten- 



