32 



equal iii size or flavour, to that of the crops you are to get 

 if you wait. The pruning you have to do is exactly a 

 repetition of last year's work, but a stage higher up in the 

 tree. You had originally four branches. You allowed 

 eight laterals to run, two from each of them. Now your 

 set of eight is to be converted into sixteen by choice of the 

 two best placed shoots on each. Pinch out the rest as 

 before. Cut back to about eighteen inches those you pre- 

 serve. And here a little judgment must be exercised. 



36. Seeing that in this third series of reserved shoots we 

 have advanced much higher up in the cone pattern we are 

 shaping out, it is clear that the circumference of the pruned 

 head of the tree will give now a very much larger circle 

 than previously. The operator must therefore take care 

 that he does not " prune to a hollow head," that is, cut the 

 series all to outside buds, which will shoot outwards, en- 

 larging the cone, and give little or no provision for filling 

 the centre. Enough must be cut to side buds, or even 

 inner ones, to provide against an open head. All that can 

 be done in these verbal directions is to point out that cut- 

 ting to outside buds tends to enlarge the cone and thin the 

 head ; cutting to inside buds will as certainly decrease it 

 and thicken up the head. A judicious balance between the 

 extremes must be made, and this result will give a well- 

 formed Y-shaped tree whose centre is sufficiently dense 

 without crowding, and whose arms are not so extravagantly 

 splayed outwards as to make the junction whence they 

 spring too weak to bear the leverage exerted by the limbs 

 and their weight of fruit. Nor are they so much sloped as 

 to interfere with your hand-cultivator or your barrow. 

 Much may be learned by watching the practice of some 

 wise old gardener, and if possible following the mental 

 picture he has in his mind of what the tree is to be shaped 

 up to, and observing how he makes the buds to which he 

 cuts serve his purpose. Above all, the beginner must try 

 for himself, after getting the principles of the art well into 

 his mind. Undoubtedly he will make mistakes ; but every 

 mistake should be the very best lesson in never making it 

 again. 



37. It is scarcely necessary to add that there is nothing 

 absolute in the number four taken as an example. Three 



