CHAPTER XIV. 



OF TRAINING. 



Teaining Is one of the most artificial operations that 

 gardeners are acquainted with, its object being to place a plant 

 in a condition to which it could n6ver arrive under ordinary 

 circumstances. It is so nearly connected with the art of 

 pruning, that the French speak of both under the common 

 name of la taille. The practice of it forms one of the most 

 compHcated parts of horticulture, each species of tree demand- 

 ing a method peculiar to itself; but the principles on which 

 training depends are few and simple. 



Those who desire to understand the routine of training must 

 refer to their garden library. In all works devoted to the art 

 of gardening, full instructions are given ftr the management of 

 every kind of tree in common cultivation. From Miller's 

 Dictiona/ry up to Mackiatosh's very useful Book of the Garden 

 we find the most minute instructions hc% to train a tree ; there 

 is wall-traiaing and espalier-training," pyramidal-training and 

 balloon-training, dwarf-training and standard-training, pillar- 

 training, horizontal-training, zigzag-training, and a host of other 

 devices which ingenious persons have invented. , Some are 

 necessary, some useful, some fanciful. In matters horticultu- 

 ral there are martinets as well as in matters military; and 

 many a gardener practically falls into the error of supposing 

 that the goose step, a tight jacket, leather stock, and pipe clay,, 

 make the soldier. He measures the angles of a tree, pinions 

 its limbs, drills its branches by inexorable rules, "cuts hard in," 

 "lays in close," and then believes he has exhausted skill. The 

 tree looks well perhaps, but a small matter makes it ill, limh 



