CAI*. 



managing those fruit-trees which are not placed against 

 a wall, There are divers modes of training, the pyramid, 

 the goblet, the bush, the half-standard, the arching; and, 

 which is the great method of all, espalier, after which 

 will come the instructions for rearing of standards 

 for the orchard. I shall give my reasons for preferring 

 the old-fashioned espalier to every other species of 

 training of trees not against a wall, and also my reasons 

 for wholly excluding all standards from the garden. I 

 think all the other methods, except the espalier, of train- 

 ing fruit-trees (for a garden) very bad : I have never 

 seen them attended .with success, to say nothing of 

 the irregularity of their appearance, and the various in- 

 conveniences which attend them. Nevertheless, I will 

 mention them here one by one, that the reader may, 

 if he chuse, make use of them. 



253. PYRAMID FORM. Some think that the distaff and 

 pyramid forms are different ones, and that the former re- 

 quires less pains than the latter. No doubt this error 

 arises from their having taken for the former some neg- 

 lected and ill trained trees, whilst they have seen trees of 

 the pyramid form well trained by a skilful hand. Be 

 that, however as it may, the first year prune the graft at 

 5 or 6 inches from the bottom, saving 3 or 4 eyes to 

 form lateral branches and to carry up the stem j but 

 these first lateral branches are most essential, for they 

 will furnish the requisite abundance of wood below, 

 which, when the tree has obtained a certain height, can- 

 not be obtained, and yet which is absolutely necessary to 

 the beauty as well as utility of the pyramid. Suffer no 

 other shoots this year than from the 3 or 4 buds men- 

 tioned above. Stop the upright stem every year when 



