THE CULTURE OF PLANTS 



And, that you may the better understand what to 

 cut, you may stand under, go about, and look up 

 through the tree where you may espy superfluities ; 

 keep them clear, void, open within like a bell, and 

 level on the top ; make some larger opens towards 

 the south, for the sun-beams' entrance. Let no 

 branch grow cross through the heart, nor shoot 

 spring up therein ; minding to prune such as cross, 

 rub, and gall one another, as is before noted ; and 

 any branches, shoots, or twigs, that grow not the 

 way you would have them, cut them at the place 

 whence you think they will sendf urth shoots, which 

 may lead them the way you desire them ; cut close, 

 smooth, and slanting, at the back of a leaf -bud tend- 

 ing that way. By this I bring trees to order. 



Wall-trees especially should be cut near while 

 young, that they may send forth small shoots, for 

 furnishing your walls from the bottom equally; 

 andif you continue to top them every year at a con- 

 venient hight (perhaps about half a foot above the 

 last) that will make them shoot all their branches 

 of an equal uniformity of greatness, hight and 

 thickness, so that no long, bair, or naked branch 

 may be seen there, neither one or two great, and 

 all the rest starved and small, which is the common 



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