492 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



competition between probationary fruit-shoots which have been laid in too close. In 

 those stone-fruit trees which bear on the last year's shoot, such as the peach and most 

 kinds of the apricot, it is particularly necessary to revise the winter pruning at the 

 time of blossoming ; because, if on any branch the blossoms are observed to have been 

 spoiled either by gum, by blight, or spring frost, that branch is quite useless as a bearer, 

 and unless it has made some shoots which may prove bearers the following year, is to 

 be entirely cut away : but if the blighted branches have made well placed shoots, shorten 

 them to these. (Abercrombie.) 



2585. Methods of training. The two principal methods of training wall-trees which 

 are followed in this country, Neill observes, are called the fan and the horizontal modes. 

 In the former, the branches are arranged like the spokes of a fan, or like the hand opened 

 and the fingers spread. In the other way, a principal stem is carried upright, and 

 branches are led from it horizontally on either side. The Dutch style consists in taking 

 a young tree with two branches, and leading these horizontally to the right and left, to 

 the extent, perhaps, of twelve feet each way, and in then training the shoots from these 

 perfectly upright to the top of the wall. This is now seldom practised here, excepting, 

 perhaps, with fig-trees, or white currants. In some places, a few of the wall-trees are 

 trained in a stellate form, the stem being led upright for about six feet, and then some 

 branches trained downwards, others laterally, and others upwards. When walls exceed 

 seven feet in height, the best gardeners seem to concur in giving the preference to the 

 fan training, variously modified : in this way they find that a tree can much sooner be 

 brought to fill its allotted space, and the loss of a branch can much more easily be sup- 

 plied at any time. For lower walls, the horizontal method is preferred ; and the same 

 plan is adopted almost universally on espalier-rails. Hitt strongly recommends this 

 mode for most sorts of wall-trees ; and for pears he adopts what is called the screw 

 stem, or training the stem in a serpentine manner, the branches going off horizontally as 

 in the ordinary straight stem. (Edin. Encyc. art. Hort.) Nicol agrees with most ex- 

 perienced gardeners, in preferring fan training to all other methods ; and it may be ob- 

 served, that this form comes nearer to that mode recommended by Knight, as affording 

 " evidence of a more regular distribution of the sap," than any other mode. It agrees 

 with the excellent general principles of pruning laid down by Quintiney, who first re- 

 duced this branch of gardening to scientific principles and to the practice of the cele- 

 brated growers of peaches at Montreuil, near Paris. 



2366. Knight remarks, that when trees are, by any means, deprived of the motion which their branches 

 naturally receive from the winds, the forms in which they are trained operate more powerfully on their 

 permanent health and vigor than is generally imagined. " In this sentiment," says Nicol, " I perfectly 

 agree ; and I may be allowed to add, that I have been engaged in the training of fruit-trees these twenty- 

 five years, and have trained them in a great variety of forms. Some in the Dutch style, running out two 

 branches first, perfectly horizontal, right and left, to the extent of three or four years each way, and 

 from these training shoots perfectly upright, at nine inches apart, to the top of the wall ; some with 

 screwed stems and horizontal branches ; some with upright stems and horizontal branches j some with 

 stems six feet high, with pendent, upright, and horizontal branches, so as to appear like a star ; and others 

 in the fan manner ; which last, I confess, 1 prefer to all other methods of training wall-trees. I have 

 altered many from the above forms to this both on walls and espaliers." 



2587. Modes of training to check over 

 vigorous growth are various ; but all of 

 them depend on depressing the shoots 

 either throughout their whole length or 

 operating on the young shoots only. When 

 opportunity admits, or want of space on 

 one side of a wall requires, it is found 

 conducive to moderation of growth and 

 the production of fruit to train the 

 branches of trees over the wall and down 

 the other side. (jig. 431.) This is found 

 to increase the prolificacy of vigorous 

 growing kinds, as the pear ; and it also 

 succeeds well with the apple, cherry, and vine. 



2588. Modes of training to encourage the growth of shoots proceed on the opposite prin- 

 ciple, and while over-luxuriant shoots are depressed, weak ones, which it is deemed proper 

 to encourage, are elevated and brought nearer to the perpendicular. 



2589. Pruning and training, as applied to edgings and hedges, is performed by clipping 

 or cutting en masse, with the hedge-bill. (1328.) Hedges must be cut in autumn 

 when the wood is ripe : sometimes it is done in summer, which is admissible, as far as 

 respects the health of the plants, and consequent durability of the hedge when the lower 

 ends of the shoots are nearly ripe. If this is not the case, the operation is in- 

 jurious. The judicious gardener will weigh the circumstances of the case, and decide 

 accordingly. 



431 



