334 THE FRUIT GARDEN 



should not be pressed down at all, or very little ; there should be no vacant 

 spaces about the roots, howrever. 



Care after Planting. — After planting, standard trees are staked in order 

 to resist the wrind. Wall trees and espaliers must not be tied so tightly as to 

 prevent their settling dow^n with the soil. The stems of standard trees should 

 be sheltered from the hot sun by a little straw. The soil at the foot of, and 

 especially near, a fruit wall is covered with farmyard manure. Finally, waterings 

 are given as often as needful. The soil should be top-dressed ; this retards direct 

 evaporation and checks that of the plants. 



Principles of Pruning. — The principles of reasonable pruning (which must 

 not be confounded with the mania some people have for cutting everything) 

 depend upon the food supply of plants and elaboration of the sap, the rest 

 consists but of a trick of the hand — a plan to render fruit culture possible where 

 it otherwise could not be practised. Fruit trees have two sources of food : — 

 First, their roots, which absorb the soluble elements of the soil dissolved in 

 water ; and, second, the leaves, which absorb by means of their stomata, and 

 under the influence of air, light, and heat, the carbonic acid contained in the 

 atmosphere. There is a constant relation between the absorption by the roots 

 and the elaboration by the leaves, and it is upon this relation that fruit-bearing 

 is based. Now, as the aim of all fruit culture is the production of fruit, it is 

 natural that pruning, one of its factors, should be inspired by it. Leaves are 

 indispensable to the life of a tree and to the production of fruit. But not 

 only are the leaves indispensable ; they must also be in proportion to the 

 richness of the elements furnished by the roots. Vigorous trees require a 

 greater leaf surface than those less vigorous. Trees with tap-roots (for 

 example, seedling pears) need more leaves than trees of equal vigour with 

 surface roots, as, for example, pears grafted on the quince stock. So much 

 for the principles ; but we have said before that there was a tour de main 

 which is the skill of the practitioner, for in fruit-tree culture more than in any 

 other, theory must be allied to practice, and vice versd. The following opera- 

 tions, together with the means indicated elsewhere, will enable one to obtain or 

 to re-establish " balance." 



Direction of the Branches. — Vertical branches are more favourably 

 situated than oblique branches, and the latter than horizontal branches ; con- 

 sequently a weak branch is raised in order to strengthen it, and a strong branch 

 is turned down in order to weaken it. Strong branches are shaded in order to 

 lessen the action of air, light, and heat ; an enfeeblement is thus obtained. The 

 leaf surface is diminished by cutting the leaves in half, so as to abate their 

 functions in the strong branches, and thus favour the weak ones. Fruit is 

 preferably left upon strong and removed from weak shoots. 



Winter Work consists of cleaning, removing useless shoots, pruning so as 

 to secure proper form of tree, training, making transverse incisions above a 

 bud to strengthen it, or a longitudinal incision to increase the size of the shoot, 

 or, in the case of an unhealthy peach, to make the gum exude. 



Summer Pruning. — This has for its object the removal of useless shoots, 

 thus causing the sap to be more equally distributed as well as admitting light 



