MANAGEMENT OF YOUNG TREES 59 
To a great extent the general management of young 
trees is altogether different from the management required 
to be given to old trees; inasmuch as the difficulties are 
more numerous, and the care and attention necessary to 
be bestowed on them more manifold. Our forefathers 
with the greatest skill and care laid out and formed the 
old established Topiary gardens of the present day, and 
afterwards year by year trained and shaped the fine old 
specimens of the Topiary art now to be seen in some of 
the old gardens, so that when a person is walking 
through one of these gardens, and examining the quaint 
and curious shapes of the trees, he cannot fail to admire 
them and to reflect upon the amount of skill and labour 
that has been bestowed on them. It would be curious, 
indeed, if he failed to pause, and consider the amount of 
patience the gardeners of earlier years were endowed 
with. In many respects the gardener of the present 
time has the advantage in Topiary work at least 
over his brother of one or two hundred years ago. 
Whether the gardeners of the present day are more 
skilled in that special art, is a question which I 
am not prepared to answer; but I am certain 
that there is no mistaking the abilities of the old 
gardeners in the art of training trees. [he work they 
have left behind them proves this beyond a doubt. 
The gardener of the present day has more variety of 
shapes to choose from, and a larger and more varied 
selection of trees to work upon. 
If the trees were a good size and well grown when 
they were planted, the work of clipping and training 
them may be commenced the following year, according 
to the shape into which it is intended to form the tree. 
It is not advisable that any clipping or training be done 
to the trees the same autumn or winter that they are 
planted. It should be deferred until the following 
autumn, in order to allow of fresh root action taking 
