86 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



of an equal advancement sustain when taken up in 

 the ordinary way and carried to a distance. But 

 though there be no fault either by age or canker 

 or soil, it is no uncommon thing to find espaliers 

 wholly unfit for fruit bearing owing to mismana^e- 

 ment alone. You may see that the top branches, 

 which give rise to an annual profusion of young 

 shoots, have been annually cropped in a manner pro- 

 per to a quickset hedge ; and all over the body of the 

 tree, instead of bearing spurs, you will find a multi- 

 tude of ligneous knobs, every one yielding its own 

 bundle of brushwood manifesting such a mode of 

 pruning as that practised on English hedgerows, 

 where the design of leaving so many stumps on the 

 stem of the tree is to afford every year a more liberal 

 supply of fuel. 



For the redress of this woful wrong, it is only 

 necessary to distinguish a fruit spur from a wooden 

 knob which any one a little more discerning than 

 such a knob can be at no loss to do and, having 

 made this distinction, to apply the saw, or a strong 

 knife, or the chisel and mallet, sparing the knobs as 

 little as honey bees do their drones. Then will your 

 flower buds once more see the sun, and rejoice in 

 their liberty, whilst the pith of the tree, which the 

 idle knobs consumed, will go to swell your store of 

 juicy apples and honey pears. Where the vile hedge- 

 pruning of the top branches has left a strong, close, 

 and lengthy stubble, you must proceed with a lower 

 cut, and make all smooth, even though your work 

 should resemble that of peeling oak for sake of the 

 bark. In the healing of such sores the powers of 

 nature are wonderful ; and it is just the tenderness 



