APPLES AND PEAPvS. 67 



an aftergrowth, which, not being intended, proves 

 a want of skill, and is considerably detrimental. 

 This evil thing too will show itself even when you 

 have made the best choice of season, owing to an 

 unusual warmth and wetness towards the end of 

 autumn. But to avoid the difficulty of a nice dis- 

 tinction as to season, which after all may not serve, 

 and to accomplish the first intention of giving free 

 air to the fruit as well as to guard surely against the 

 trouble of aftergrowth, the following compromise 

 will in all cases be successful. Towards the end of 

 July, take a large sharp knife, and reserving only 

 the few twigs that are to be nailed to the wall, go 

 over all your trees of the kind in question, arid, by 

 one half hour's indiscriminate slashing, clear off all 

 the encumbrance of breastwood that is, of young 

 shoots growing straight forward taking care only 

 to leave about a handbreadth of stubble, or in other 

 words to cut the scions at such distance from the 

 stem. From the higher ends of these stumps, 

 young shoots will very likely arise; but no matter, 

 your work is not finished, their appearance is at a 

 place where they do no harm, and you settle ac- 

 counts with them by the proper pruning at the end 

 of the year. For this proper pruning you must 

 distinguish leaf from flower buds, and bearing spurs 

 from ligneous shoots, which may be done by looking 

 at the tree better than by a page of writ. When 

 you have enough of flower buds or spurs (little 

 shoots of two inches, with a large head, and not 

 like the rest) say at every half foot or less, make a 



