154 '^I'he Cordon System of Training Fruit Trees. 



required to furnish walls in the ordinary way, there can be little 

 doubt that this mode of training the peach is a real improvement, 

 and especially where a considerable number of varieties are required 

 from a small space. Apart from that, however, the facility with 

 which walls may be covered by its means, and the readiness with 

 which a diseased or otherwise objectionable one may be replaced, 

 will doubtless prove sufficient recommendations for cultivators who 

 are not restricted as to space. 



I must, however, state that some French fruit-growers think that 

 there is no occasion for resorting to this simple cordon in the case 

 of the peach, any more than in the case of the pear. My friend 

 M. F. Jamain, of Bourg La Reine, plants in his own 

 garden a form of tree with three vertical branches, and 

 if he wants a great variety of fruit from a small space, 

 works a different variety on each branch. Fig. 34 

 shows, on a small scale, the aspect of one of his young 

 specimens, trained on this principle, at the time of 

 my visit. The aspect of this may suggest a difference 

 in the French and English mode of pruning the peach, 

 and a marked one exists. As a rule they spur-in all 

 the shoots, but not very closely ; we lay-in the fruiting 

 wood left after the pruning; and some of our good 

 growers say that the paucity of buds at the base of the shoots must 

 prevent us from adopting the French method. I am doubtful of 

 this, and think that the spurring-in system has never had a fair 

 trial in this country. 



Fig. 34. 



