VI. x TRAINING AND PRUNING. 



you desire in the summer, pinch it off a little above 

 that point, and cut down to the exact height you wish 

 it in your first succeeding winter pruning ; and then cut 

 off again all the other shoots of the summer that you 

 have before only pinched off. Then in the following 

 spring, having now got the trunk of your tree, watch 

 narrowly the shoots that the last year's wood will send 

 out, and chuse from among them the three or four most 

 vigorous and most equally placed of them for principal 

 branches, and pinch off all the rest as before directed. 

 When these branches send out their shoots, pinch off 

 those that come too close to one another, and prune 

 them close in winter. In the autumn, prune the princi- 

 pal branches and their shoots that are designed to be se- 

 condary branches, precisely as we have directed with 

 regard to wall-trees above ; and when you have done so 

 two or three years, you may let the tree alone to nature, 

 only cutting out the dead branches as they occur. A tree 

 well formed, and in good ground well cultivated, will last 

 more than a century. Sometimes a vigorous branch will 

 do harm to more fruitful ones, and yet you may, for 

 sound reasons, wish to preserve it. In such a case, 

 slacken its vigour by pruning it very long, or even by 

 ringing it. 



257* ARCHING is done by bending in the form of a 

 half-hoop, more or less open, the branches, and in this 

 way you bring them pointing towards the earth. This 

 situation retards the circulation of the sap, and forces it 

 to betake itself to leaf buds and to transform them into 

 wood-buds. 



