88 TREATISE ON 



wood branches, false wood branches, & even the most vigorous suckers equally, & 

 promote their length & their size by training them vertically. They prune all of these 

 indiscriminately to be wood branches; for fruit, they prune the strongest and the best of 

 those that have emerged in the same year. They extend their wood branches to two-&- 

 one-half feet long, sometimes even longer if it's a vigorous tree. The first time they prune 

 these branches, they don't incline them at all if the shape of the tree doesn't require it. 

 When pruned very long & held almost vertically, they acquire the same strength & 

 quality as though they'd been treated that way. And when after several years this series of 

 pruning generates branches of considerable length, they take advantage of their length to 

 bend them, to tilt them to the sides, & to open up the tree. As a result, the branches in the 

 middle & at the top of the tree are now situated on the sides. They treat new false wood 

 branches, or suckers that emerge from them, the same way. They have intelligence, 

 observation, long experience, & - a great teacher - the interest of the townspeople 

 themselves. They are people who are busy their whole lives cultivating their trees and 

 have fashioned, perfected, and adapted to their region this method for greatly lengthening 

 pruning on their trees, especially while they're young, pruning only the large branches, & 

 giving preference to those rejected by other methods. Landowners with espaliers set up 

 on ground of similar quality, soil that's inexhaustible, where the same productivity seems 

 to renew itself incessantly or even increase, will be able to practice this method as 

 successfully as do the villagers of Montreuil. But you have to study under them and learn 

 from them, & such a course of study takes more than a year. At any other place, a 

 successful outcome is very doubtful at the least. 



