BOOK I. APPLE. 701 



guous shoot may be shortened in June to a few eyes, to furnish several laterals the same season. Keep 

 the shoots in all parts closely trained, both to preserve the regularity of the espalier, and to admit the air 

 and sun to the advancing fruit. 



4421. The winter pruning may be performed from November till the beginning of April. This compre- 

 hends the regulation of the wood-branches, the bearers, and of the young shoots. First, examine the 

 new shoots trained in the preceding summer ; and if too abundant, retain only a competency of well placed 

 and promising laterals, to furnish vacant parts, with a leading shoot to each parent branch. Continue 

 these mostly at full length, as far as there is room. Cut out close the superabundant and irregular young 

 shoots ; and where any of the elder branches appear unfruitful, cankery, or decayed, cut them either clean 

 out, or prune short to some good lateral, as may seem expedient. Also prune into order any branches 

 which are very irregular, or too extended. Carefully preserve all the eligible natural fruit-spurs ; but re- 

 move all unfruitful stumps and snags, and large projecting rugged spurs ; cutting close to the old wood. 

 As each espalier is pruned, let the old and new branches be laid in at convenient distances, according to 

 the size of the fruit, four, five, or six inches asunder, and neatly tied or nailed to the wall or trellis. 

 (Abercrombie.) 



4422. Training espaliers. The following mode, as described by Mearns, is the most general, and by using 

 stakes, which do not answer so well for any other species of espalier-tree as for apples, is also the most eco- 

 nomical : In the first stage of training, the stakes require to stand as close together as twelve or fourteen 

 inches, and to be arranged in regular order to the full height of five feet, with a rail slightly fastened on 

 the top of them for neatness sake, as well as to steady them. If stakes of small ash, Spanish chestnut, or 

 the like, from coppices or thinnings of young plantations, be used, they will last for three or four years, 

 provided they are from one inch and a half to two inches in diameter, at a foot from the bottom. They need 

 not be extended further in the first instance than the distance to be considered probable the trees may 

 reach in three years' growth ; at that period, or the following season, they will all require to be renewed, 

 and the new ones may be placed on each side, to the extent that the trees maybe thought to require while 

 these stakes last, finishing the top as before, with a rail. As the trees extend their horizontal branches, and 

 acquire substance, the two stakes on each side of the one that supports the centre leader of the tree, can be 

 spared, and removed to any of the extremities where wanted. And as the tree extends further, and ac- 

 quires more substance, every other stake will be found sufficient ; and the centre stake can be spared also, 

 after the leader has reached its destined height, and is of a sufficient substance to support itself erect. 

 When such a form of training is completed, and the branches of sufficient magnitude, about six, eight, or 

 twelve stakes will be sufficient for the support of the horizontal branches, even when they have the burden 

 of a full crop of fruit. At any other time, about six stakes to each tree will be all that are necessary. 



4423. In selecting trees for the usual horizontal training, look out for those which have three fine shoots. 

 Or it is better to plant them one year where they are to remain to get their roots well established, and then 

 to head them down to within eight or nine inches of the ground, and to encourage three shoots from the 

 top of each stool' (fig. 483. a), so that the first and lowermost horizontal shoots may be tied down within 

 ten inches of the ground. 



4424. In the pruning season cut down the middle shoot of the three, reserving what is left as an upright 

 leader, its length being about twelve inches from the base of the other two, and train these in a horizontal 

 position (A), fixing the middle shoot, which was cut down perpendicularly to the stake it is planted against. 

 But if it is against a wall or pales, it may be better to zigzag the upright leader, for the more regular dis- 

 tribution of the sap, and when that is intended, the leader should be left a little longer, to allow of its 

 being bent. In espalier training this zigzagging is not so readily done, nor is it necessary where the trees 

 are not intended to rise high. It is always necessary, in the course of training the young wood across the 

 stakes, in summer, to have large osier, or similar rods, to tie them to, in order to guide the shoots of the 

 year in a proper direction. The proper ties are small osier twigs. 



4425. The following summer encourage three other shoots in the same way as the season before (c), then 

 cut off the middle shoot at ten, twelve, or fifteen inches above the base of the other two, and train these 

 last as in the former season (d) ; and so continue training, year after year, till the trees have reached their 

 destined height. (Mearns, in Hort. Trans, v. -16.) An improvement on this mode consists in cutting down 

 the leading shoot during summer, in the manner practised by Harrison, of Wortley Hall, as described in 

 the succeeding paragraphs. 



4426. Training against a wall. The horizontal mode is unquestionably to be preferred 

 for so vigorous a growing tree as the apple ; and Harrison's mode of conducting the 

 process (Tr. on Fruit- Trees, 1823. ch. xx.) appears to us much the best. The pe- 

 culiarity of his method is, that instead of training the leading shoot in a serpentine or 

 zigzag manner with Hitt or Mearns, to make it send out side shoots, he adopts the 

 much more simple and effectual mode of cutting down the current year's shoots in June ; 

 by which means he gains annually a year, as side shoots are produced on the young wood 

 of that year, as well as on last year's wood which it sprang from. 



4427. The tree being a maiden plant is the first year headed down to seven buds. Every bud pushing, 

 two of the shoots, the third and fourth, counting upwards, must be rubbed off when they are three inches 

 in length ; the uppermost shoot must be trained straight up the wall for a leading stem, and the remaining 

 four horizontally along the wall. The leading shoot having attained about fifteen inches in length, cut it 

 down to eleven inches. From the shoots that will thus be produced select three, one to be trained as a 

 leader, and two as side branches. Proceeding in this way for seven years, the tree will have reached the 

 top of a wall twelve feet high. With weak trees, or trees in very cold late situations, this practice will not 

 be advisable, as the wood produced would be too weak, or would not ripen ; but in all ordinary situations, 

 it is obviously a superior mode to any that has been hitherto described in books. In pruning the spurs of 

 apple and other trees, Harrison differs from many gardeners in keeping them short, never allowing one 

 spur to have more than three or four fruit-buds, and in cutting off the spurs entirely, or cutting them down 

 for renewal every fourth or fifth year. Every practical gardener, desirous of excelling in the training 

 and spurring of fruit-trees, ought to possess Harrison's treatise. 



4428. Heading down apple-trees that are much cankered, is strongly recommended by 

 Forsyth, who gives an example of one (Jig. 484.), after it had been headed down four 

 years, which bore plenty of fine fruit. The point at which it was headed down (a) was 

 within eighteen inches of the soil ; and under it, on the stump, were two large wounds (6) 



