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GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



i.e. in summer five or six leaves, and pruned in winter to three buds. 

 When this practice is followed and care is taken that the spurs do not 

 crowd each other so as to exclude the sun and air, a fruitful tree will 

 invariably result. 



Pruning the Spurs. It is sometimes necessary to prune the spurs, 

 so as to keep them near the wall. In time they get so far away 

 as to derive no benefit from its warmth and shelter, and must therefore 

 be shortened. Upon fruit spurs there are two kinds of buds plump, 

 oval-shaped ones, the blossom-buds ; and thin, elongated ones known as 

 " spur-buds." These produce leaves only, and if, as sometimes happens, 

 the spurs of a Pear tree have numerous spur-buds and comparatively few 



PEAR. FAN-SHAPED, THIRD YEAR 



flower-buds, the best practice is to thin out at the winter pruning or 

 severely shorten back those spurs on the upper part of the tree, arid to 

 treat those in the middle and lower branches more leniently. The object 

 of so doing is to equalise the distribution of the sap for the lower por- 

 tion of the tree is invariably the weaker a condition that tends to 

 decrease the number of barren and useless spurs by promoting the for- 

 mation of flower-buds. 



Root-pruning. This sometimes necessary and beneficial operation 

 is fully explained in the chapter on the Apple ; it is usually upon 

 trees worked on the Pear stock that root-pruning is required. Instead 

 of simply making a trench around the Pear tree to arrive at the offend- 

 ing roots, if the former be not very large it may be lifted altogether ; 

 and its roots, that will probably have found their way into the subsoil, 



