130 On the Arrangejne?it and Management 



that it tends to barrenness, as being adverse to the elaboration of 

 the sap, or true blood, of the plant. Let its evils, however, be 

 as great as they may, I am satisfied that they are not greater 

 than injudicious disbudding. As, however, it will happen, through 

 most seasons, especially moist ones, that they will make more 

 breast wood than is compatible with the due admission of light, 

 what must be done ? If it be pruned away, or disbudded nearly 

 as fast as it is made, the embryo flower buds will be forced 

 from their snug retreat into wood. If it be left on the tree all 

 the summer, from the almost total exclusion of light, the buds 

 will be meagre and imperfectly ripened, and a bad developement 

 in the ensuing spring, and a shy setting, will be the consequences. 

 How, then, are these evils to be avoided ? Simply by laying in 

 the leading branches at greater distances than they are com- 

 monly done (I should say a foot apart) ; and then we shall be 

 enabled to procure a moderate crop of foreright shoots, without 

 excluding the light. My maxim is this as to disbudding, as it 

 is termed. Having abundance of free-growing wood in the centre 

 of the tree, and this all nailed as nearly perpendicular as possible, 

 I proceed (I speak now of pear trees), in the early part of July, 

 or, at the earliest, the end of June, to crop with a knife some of 

 the foreright shoots back to four or five joints, commencing at 

 the bottom of the tree, and doing a few tiers of branches at a 

 time; in the course of another week, I go over them again, and 

 crop another tier or two, and so on, advancing from the bottom 

 of the wall towards the luxuriant centre of the tree ; and always, 

 if possible, taking advantage of a dry time for the purpose, or 

 when, in fact, there is the least excitement to wood. Some few 

 shoots here and there I entirely disbud : for instance, where there 

 are several situated close together, making the tree dark in that 

 part; and those I leave are pruned to within about four or five 

 leaves. As for neatness of appearance, I esteem it as highly as 

 any one ; but when, in kitchen-gardening, neatness is found in 

 opposition to utility, the former, of course, must give way : how- 

 ever, a clever hand at fruit trees will render the two sufficiently 

 compatible for all purposes. It is a fact, and known well to 

 most practical gardeners, that those embryo buds of pear trees 

 which are to produce blossoms the next spring must develope 

 a good tuft of large and healthy leaves early the spring preced- 

 ing ; for, if they do so, and do not push into wood, they are sure 

 to be blossoms the ensuing spring. How frequently we see pear 

 and other trees against walls, in which the upper branches 

 cannot bear through luxuriance, and the under ones through 

 weakness ; and this in the selfsame tree ! Now, this is very com- 

 monly the case on the capricious light soils above alluded to, and 

 it requires no small skill and attention, on such soils, to divert 

 the ascending sap into the lower branches ; and, unless diverted 



