THE MAKING OF TREES 35 



occasionally, and though it may nor exterminate all the insects, 

 it will do the soil, and the trees, good. 



The summer spraying of the young stock ought to be done 

 regularly from May till September, for no youngling can healthily 

 develop if its leaves are foul and congested with the excreta of the 

 insects preying upon them ; but even this is a light matter if 

 compared with their constant feeding on the cells and tissues. 

 And when in spite of the spraying these pests will come, then the 

 washing should be resorted to as explained in the last chapter. 

 Do this before the attacking hordes get out of hand, for often and 

 often have we seen strong, promising shoots stopped short in their 

 growth and stunted at half their proper length through the ravages 

 of the pests swarming upon them. There is no part of their cultiva- 

 tion that we insist more strongly upon than their general cleanliness 

 and freedom from insect pests. The woolly aphis, or American 

 blight, should especially be guarded against, for their damage is 

 even worse. They attack the tree through the bark and cripple 

 the circulatory system. The nodules they raise easily develop into 

 canker and so spoil the tree. We have ourselves received trained 

 apples which have so suffered from this pest that we dared not 

 plant them, but have returned them to the sender. 



Beyond the pruning, digging, and cleansing, the work during the 

 second and third year is routine, except where trained trees are in 

 the making, and there is more detail involved in this than in any 

 other form of tree. The removal of projecting shoots from the 

 front and back of the trees, leaving those only which are growing 

 in a lateral direction at regular intervals, and the training of them 

 in position as shown in Fig. 18, is not such a mechanical operation 

 as it would look. It is really work for the expert, and this is shown 

 by the difference in value between an espalier and a tree of any 

 other shape of a similar age. Our illustration shows both second 

 and third year growths, and the mark thus \ shows where the 

 former was pruned back at the end of the second year. 



CORDONS 



A word or two on the making of a cordon will not be out of place 

 here. The treatment can be fairly followed by a study of Fig. 17, 



