FRUIT committee's REPORT. 43 



near the bottom ; these and the leading shoots should again afterwards be yearly 

 shortened, so that when the tree attains its full size, it may appear as a regu- 

 lar cone, gradually decreasing in size from the bottom to the top, becoming 

 when filled with its fruit, a beautiful object. A neglect of the proper train- 

 ing or forming the tree, may perhaps sometimes account for a failure in 

 this mode of cultivation with those who object to it, this want of success. If 

 the young plant is neglected and left to assume the form it pleases, it may 

 take that of a branching spreading head, with a long naked stem, affording 

 a powerful leverage to be operated upon by high winds striking the bushy 

 top to the uprooting or bending down the tree, or some other equally un- 

 favorable form. This is not felt to be the proper place to attempt to give 

 instruction with respect to the rearing or training of trees further than by 

 this brief outline ; by the uninformed, the necessary information can readily 

 be obtained, by reference to treatises on the subject by various authors, or to 

 the experience of their neighbors — among the first named of these means of 

 supplying information, to a little work, by Mr. Rivers of Sawbridgeworth, 

 entitled the " Miniature Fruit Garden " — as containing useful directions, and 

 many valuable suggestions in relation to this subject. 



A mode of training dwarf pear trees, so far as is known unique in itself 

 and peculiar to its inventor, has been adopted by one of the most extensive 

 and most skilful cultivators of them in this vicinity, who, as often as any otlier 

 grower, has succeeded in bearing away from his competitors the first prizes 

 at our annual exhibitions ; an associate, and long an honored and trusted 

 officer of this Society, in a situation of much responsibility ; that, from the 

 success that has attended it, should, as an act of justice to him, and for the 

 benefit of its members, be brought particularly to the notice of the Society. 

 The method referred to being that invented and practised by Captain William 

 R. Austin of Dorchester. Captain Austin trains his trees, as he calls it 

 himself, in a wine-glass form ; they have a naked stem about two feet in 

 length, that then divides into four or five main limbs, also trained uprightly ; 

 from these main limbs, as fast as they appear, all side growth is at once re- 

 moved, that by this means are converted into fruit spurs, and the fruit being 

 borne on these spurs directly on the main limb, such being upright, easily 

 support the weight, and the necessity of tying up or supporting the limbs to 

 prevent being broken or weighed down by the fruit as when borne on the side 

 shoots, is avoided. Captain Austin is the inventor of this method of training 

 standard dwarf pears, at least no one else is known who pursues it ; it seems 

 to be in principle the same as that known as the Cordon Method, being that 

 adopted and applied by the Rev. T. Collings Brehaut, at the gardens of Rich- 

 mond House, Guernsey, to peach trees, on walls, and described as follows : — 

 " The trees have each three leaders laid in at an angle of forty-five degrees, 

 the spurs and successive growth on these spurs are slowly pinched in during 

 summer ; as soon as six leaves are developed on any shoot, these are pinched 

 down to three ; succeeding growth pinched in to two and one leaf respec- 



