424 TO DIMINISH THE BATE OF GROWTH 



pletion of the process of growth, the result of which is the 

 ripening the wood. This is, indeed, the view taken of it by 

 Mr. Harrison, who found the practice necessary, in order to 

 obtain crops of Pears in late seasons at Wortley, in Yorkshire 

 (see Hort. Trans., iii. 330, and vi. 453). It hardly need be 

 added that the effect of blackening wUl be in proportion to the 

 thinness of the training, and vice versa. 



Another object of training is, to place a tree in such a state 

 of constraint that its juices are unable to circulate freely, the 

 result of which is exactly that already assigned to the process 

 of ringing (see p. 370). If a stem is trained erect it is more 

 vigorous than if placed in any other position, and its tendency 

 to bear leaves rather than flowers is increased ; in proportion 

 as it deviates from the perpendicular is its vigour diminished. 

 For instance, if a stem is headed back, and only two opposite 

 buds are allowed to grow, they continue to push equally, so 

 long as their relation to the perpendicular is the same ; but, if 

 one is bent towards a horizontal direction, and the other 

 allowed to remain, the growth of the former is immediately 

 checked ; let the depression be increased, the weakness of the 

 branch increases proportionally ; and this may be carried on 

 till the branch perishes by a process of abstracting food 

 analogous to starvation in animals. In training, this fact is 

 of the utmost value in enabling the gardener to regulate the 

 symmetry of a tree, and to cause one part to balance another 

 exactly, which is one of the first objects the trainer has to 

 attain. "Whenever one branch or one side of a trained tree 

 becomes stronger than another, the difference increases tUl the 

 larger succeeds in starving the former. It however by no 

 means follows that, because out of two contiguous branches, 

 one growing erect and the other forced into a downward direc- 

 tion, the latter may die, that if all branches are trained down- 

 wards any will die. On the contrary, a general inversion of their 

 natural position is of so little consequence to their healthiness, 

 that no effect seems in general to be produced beyond that of 

 causing a slow circulation, and the formation of flowers. Hence 

 the directing of branches downwards is one of the commonest 

 and most successful contrivances employed by gardeners to 



