228 PRUNING. 



half way down in midsummer, and at the following spring 

 pruning they are placed in the horizontal position. The 

 leading shoot of rapid growing sorts may be stopped about 

 the end of June, and this will produce side shoots from 

 which another pair of arms may be taken, and thus gain 



year in the formation of the tree, or covering the wall 

 or trellis. 



For weak growing sorts, the fan form or some modi- 

 fication of it would, perhaps, be more suitable than the 

 horizontal, as it offers less restraint to the circulation of 

 the sap in the branches. 



The Cherry as a Dwarf or Bush. The slow growing 

 sorts, such as the dukes and morellos, when worked on the 

 mahaleb stock, make very pretty and very easily man- 

 aged prolific bushes, and by occasional root pruning they 

 may be confined to as small a space as a dwarf apple 

 tree. To produce this form, the young tree is cut back 

 to within five or six buds of its base ; and from the shoots 

 produced below that, four or five evenly distributed 

 around the tree are selected for the permanent branches 

 or frame- work of the tree. The others are rubbed off. 

 At the next pruning the branches thus produced are 

 shortened to produce secondary branches ; and thus it is 

 treated from year to year until the tree is formed and full 

 grown. 



The branches must be kept far enough apart to admit 

 the sun and air freely amongst them. When the tree is 

 five or six years old, if it grows too vigorously, requiring 

 more space than can be given it, the larger roots may be 

 shortened in July or August, or in the winter. This and 

 the pyramid, and the dwarf standard, with stems two feet 

 high, are the most eligible garden forms for the cherry.* 



* Mr. Rivers states in his " Miniature Fruit Garden," that he has a 

 plant of the late duke cherry ten years old, that never was root-pruned, and 

 yet is a smal] prolific tree, five feet in height, and the branches the same in 



