52 THE BOOK OF TOPIARY 
before the severe frosts of winter set in. When the 
trees are of a large size—a thing that is generally the 
case in old gardens—scaffolding of some sort will be 
necessary, and for this purpose there is nothing better 
than trestles made to close up into as little space as 
possible, for the double purpose of storing them away in 
winter or at any time they are not required for use, and 
for the sake of convenience in carrying them about the 
garden. ‘The trestles should be made in at least three 
different sizes, two of each size, or more if necessary. 
These, with the aid of a single plank laid across two 
equal sized trestles, will generally suffice for the work. 
Of course, the plank that is used must be strong enough 
to carry a man, and wide enough to give him plenty of 
standing room. 
If the trees are old and practically perfected in shape, 
the work of clipping is not such a difficult matter as 
when the trees are in course of training. But it is 
usually the case that although many of the trees are old 
there are young ones coming on that have to be shaped. 
In the case of old trees, as a general rule, all that is 
required is to take off the year’s growth; clipping back 
to the old growth of the previous year. 
Hard clipping of old trees is a practice that should to 
a certain extent be carried out, unless it is desired to 
enlarge the size of the tree. If this is the case, from 
one inch and a half to two inches of the year’s growth 
should be left on, but not more. 
Altering the shape of old trees is a thing that should 
be avoided as far as possible, especially if the trees are 
well shaped and in a healthy condition. It sometimes 
happens that one or more trees in the garden may have 
been allowed through careless management or some 
other cause to grow out of shape; or perhaps an old 
tree may be obscuring the view in some way or other. 
In the case of such a thing happening, it will be 
