g94 



THE PRACTICE OP PRUNING. 



The EASPBBB.BT-BTJSH. 



The acoompaaying figures represent wood of the preceding summer's 

 growth. 



The portion with buds marked a, a, is from the upper part of the shoot ; 



that with buds marked 6, is 

 taken from the lower part of the 

 shoot or cane. The buds a, a, 

 can scarcely be termed blossom- 

 buds, inasmuch as they do not 

 contain the rudiments of flowers 

 like the blossom-buds of the 

 kinds of fruits prcYiously no- 

 ticed; but each of them pos- 

 sesses the power of producing a 

 branchlet, and on this blossom- 

 buds are formed. The buds h, b, 

 on the lower part of the cane, 

 do not generally push unless 

 the upper have been cut away, 

 and then the lower are sti- 

 mulated, producing, however, 

 shoots and fruit later in the 

 season than those obtained from 

 the buds a, a. Advantage is 

 sometimes taken of this to pro- 

 cure a succession of fruit in 

 autumn. 



Raspberry shoots or canes, it 

 is well known, grow up in one 

 summer, produce fruit in the 

 next, and tiien die to the ground, 

 a succession having, in the mean- 

 while, sprung up. The pruning 

 usually consists in the obvious 

 operation of cutting away all the dead wood, that which has borne fruit ; 

 and in shortening that which is alive, thinning the canes so as to leave 

 three, four, five, or six, from a plant according to its strength. 



An improvement may, however, be effected on this general mode ; and 

 this improvement cannot be better explained than it is in the Guide to the 

 Orchard and Kitchen Garden, p. 481 : — " As the finest and best of these 

 fruits are, in all cases, the produce of strong and weU-ripened canes, it 

 becomes necessary that the stools should have every advantage afibrded 

 them. This may be readily effected by causing all the former years' canes 

 to be cut down to the ground as soon as they have produced their crop, 



Fig. LXXXII.— Wood of the Raspberry. 



