FRUIT TREES. Chap. IV. 89 



Attempts made in several gardens in Paris as well as in its surroundings even by 

 gardeners from Montreuil have not realized their hopes & those imagined by the owners. 

 This is proof that this pruning method ought never to leave its place of origin, & that no 

 one can transfer it to a different region without detriment to his trees & to its value. 



The entire structure of a bush tree should be grown on three or four main branches 

 arranged around an extremely short trunk. During its first years it can be trained on small 

 hoops to make it take on the round shape appropriate to it. Although the arrangement of 

 its branches is different than that on an espalier tree, the pruning is the same. The 

 particular considerations that it demands are: 1°. to keep it equally trimmed all around; 2°. 

 to cut off all branches that arise on the inside and on the outside of the bush; the latter 

 because they'd give too much breadth to the top, the former because they'd fill in the part 

 in the center that should be left empty so that sunlight gets in easily to lignify the wood 

 & to ripen the fruit. 3°. to prune it short so that the tree doesn't get too tall (raising or 

 minimizing the previous pruning of the lowest of its good branches is one of the best 

 ways to keep the tree low), & so that its branches, since they are neither fastened nor 

 supported, can withstand the force of the wind & the weight of their fruit, under which 

 long branches would give way. 



But the large areas of ground made incapable of other production by the shade of 

 bush trees, & the difficulty of tilling the soil beneath their branches, to a large extent has 

 discredited them & put them out of fashion. They're no longer grown except in areas 

 dedicated exclusively to trees, or in very large kitchen gardens where only the middle of 

 the crop patch is cultivated. Fan-shaped trees, a row of fruit trees, trees in counter- 

 espalier and in rows, encumber gardens less, 



