THE HARD-i FEUIT GAEDEN. 



323 



So much is this the case at times, that not a few- 

 fruit-trees on dwarfing stocks are hardly pruned at 

 all. The best lot of garden Apples ever gi-own by 

 the writer were from maiden plants about fifteen 

 inches long on the French Pai-adis'e stocks. They 

 ■were so finely rooted that a good many roots were 

 also pruned ofE at planting. The tops were, howevei-, 

 left at fuU length, tied down, and fastened to wires 

 fifteen inches from the ground. During the summer 

 the tiny trees for a time seemed to have a severe 

 struggle for Ufe. Each bud, however, broke at last, 

 from base to summit. During the season no exten- 

 sion of the leading shoots nor side shoots' was formed. 



Summer Pinoliing.— It may seem almost ab- 

 surd, in an article on pruning and forming, to point 

 out the possibility of aboUshing the former alto- 

 gether. This, indeed, is seldom possible. "Whatever 

 system, however, can be devised to lessen its amount 

 is Ukely to prove a clear gain of time and profit to 

 the Apple-grower or general , pomologist. The old 

 system of cutting back all maiden trees very hard— 

 that is, heading them back, as it was called— is dead 

 or dying fast. Not only are dwarfing stocks, root- 

 pruning, the leaving of the top f uU or partial length, 

 in league to abolish it, but so is summer pinching or 

 stopping. By these simple and prompt processes of 



Fig. 7.— Apple-shoot 

 unstopped. 



Fig. 8. — Apple-shoot stopped once. 



Fig, 9. — Apple-shoot stopped twice. 



The few leaves produced, however, nurtured one or 

 more fruit-buds under their axils, which were well 

 plumped up before the leaves feU in the autumn 

 (see Fig. 6). The following spring, those cordons 

 thus formed were pinked over from base to ex- 

 tremity with blossom, in due time developing into 

 fruit. A full crop was left, the fruit crowding one 

 upon the other; and from that day to this, those 

 trees have had little, several of them scarcely 

 any pruning, and they have never missed a 

 crop unless when the frost has blighted them. 

 Three things combined to develop their fertility 

 to the uttermost — the Doucin stocks, root-prun- 

 ing, and the strain of the full-lengthed tops on 

 the roots. 



This extreme case is cited less as an example to be 

 generally followed, them as an illustration of the im- 

 portant fact that root - pruning lessens and may 

 even, in certain cases, abolish the necessity for top- 

 pruning. 



arresting growth and distributing force, the growth 

 of fishing-rods for the knife, as in Fig. 7, is pre- 

 vented, and two or more seasons' growths of a more 

 fruitful, and therefore satisfactory, character are 

 concentrated into one, as in Figs. 8 and 9. 



Like most other systems, summer pinching, when 

 first infaoduced, was carried to excess, and induced 

 in many cases weakness, disease, or immaturity. 

 But the system is good, as a whole, nevertheless. 

 Thi-oughout the greater part of Great Britain, the 

 cuiTCnt year's shoots of Apples and Pears and other 

 hardy fruits may be pinched back about mid- 

 summer, and the second crop of wood fr-om the 

 stopped shoots be sufSciently matured before winter. 

 In warmer and more southern positions, the shoots 

 may be stopped twice — early in June and again in 

 August — and the third shoots of the season yet be 

 ripened. But it needs warm soils, sites, and locali- 

 ties for this. Neither is it needful. Once stopping, 

 and the more even redistribution of force and multi- 



