May.] THE FRUIT GARDEN. 335 



vigorous growths arising in the middle of the tree, unless where 

 necessary to be preserved for similar purposes. 



Where any considerable opening appears, and that but one or 

 two shoots offer in such place, you should, after these have grown 

 about a foot long, shorten them to three or four eyes, and they will 

 soon after shoot out again, probably one from each bud, to furnish 

 the vacancy. 



Be very particular as to apples, pears, plums, and cherries, not 

 to shorten or rub off such advancing buds as nature has intended 

 for fruiting-spurs, which are very distinguishable by their short 

 thick growth. 



Espaliers. 



All unnecessary, ill-placed, and fore-right shoots on espalier 

 trees of every kind, should now be rubbed off or cut away; they 

 are only robbers, and should consequently be discarded; but, in 

 doing this, discretion ought to be observed, and an abundant sup- 

 ply left to furnish the trees, and to discharge such parts of the as- 

 cending juices as are not convertible into wood or fruit. 



Apples, pears, plums and cherries, continue bearing many years 

 on the same spurs or branches, and do not require such a general 

 annual supply of young wood as peaches, nectarines, &c, which 

 always, with very few exceptions, produce their fruit from the pre- 

 ceding year's shoots; yet a sufficiency should be left to train in 

 between the main branches, and a leading or terminal one to each 

 branch, unless the tree has already extended as far as you desire; 

 for it is essentially requisite to leave a sufficient number of the best 

 placed shoots to choose from in the general winter pruning. The 

 shoots now preserved, should be trained in regularly to the espalier 

 at full length, for the reasons assigned in the winter pruning, see 

 the Fruit Garden in January. 



Where there is any great vacancy, it is proper, towards the latter 

 end of this month, to shorten some of the adjoining young shoots 

 of the year, to three or four buds, to cause them to produce a sup- 

 ply of lateral branches to till the vacant places. 



Young wall and espalier trees that are advancing in a training 

 state, should also be attended to now, in their early shooting, to 

 displace the improper and ill-placed growths, and retain all the 

 well placed shoots, both for an additional supply of branches in the 

 general formation of the trees, and to form future bearers for pro- 

 duction of fruit. 



Thinning of Fruit. 



Apricot, peach, and nectarine trees, in favourable seasons, some- 

 times set superabundant crops of fruit often in thick clusters, and 

 in greater quantities than they can supply with a sufficiency of 

 nourishment; and which, if suffered to remain, would not only be 

 poor and miserable, but would so exhaust the trees, as to render it 

 impossible for them to produce good and sufficient shoots capable 

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