Book IV. 



PRUNING. 



407 



delayed till they have attained a timber size, it is, in all cases, much less conducive to the desired en^, and 

 sometimes may prove injurious. It is safer in such cases to shorten or lessen the size of lateral branches, 

 rather than to cut them off close by the stem, as the large wounds produced by the latter practice either 

 do not cicatrise at all, or not till the central part is rotten, and has contaminated the timber of the trunk. 

 In all cases, a moderate number of small branches, to be taken off as they grow large, are to be left 

 on the trunk, to facilitate the circulation of the sap and juices. Where timber-trees are planted for 

 shelter or shade, unless intermixed with shrubs or copse, it is evident pruning must be directed to clothing 

 them from the summit to the ground with side branches. In avenues and hedge-row trees, it is generally 

 desirable that the lowest branches should be a considerable distance from the ground ; in trees intended 

 to conceal objects, as many branches should be left as possible ; and in others, which conceal distant 

 objects desired to be seen, or injure or conceal near objects, the form must be modified accordingly. In 

 all these cases, the superfluous parts are to be cut off with a clean section, near a bud or shoot if a 

 branch is shortened, or close to the trunk if it is entirely removed; the object being to facilitate 

 cicatrisation. 



2115. Pmning fruit-trees. The grand art of pruning, not only as to the modification 

 of form, but in all its other varieties, relates to fruit-trees, of vv^hich the leading characters 

 are standards and w^all-trees ; the former including dwarfs and half-standards, and the 

 latter, dwarfs and riders. 



2116- In jiruningto form standards (arbres a jylein-vent, Fr.), the first thing to be 

 determined on after the plant has been received from the nursery and planted, is, whether 

 the stem is to be tall (Jiaut'tige) or short (basse-tige) ; and the next, if the head is to be 

 trained in any particular form, as a cone, globe, semi-globe, radiated pyramid, &c. ; or 

 left to assume its natural shape. If a cone or pyramid is determined on, then a leading 

 upright shoot must be carefully preserved, and the side shoots kept at regular distances 

 from each other, and as far as practicable, equally extended on the one side of the main 

 stem as on the other, keeping always in view the ultimate figure. If a globe is to be 

 produced no shoot must be permitted to take the lead, but a number encouraged to ra- 

 diate upwards from the graft, and these kept as regular as possible, both in regard to distance 

 from each other, and of tlieir extremities from the centre of the globe. If the tree is to be 

 left to its natural shape, which in our opinion is by far the best mode, it will, in the ap- 

 ple, pear, cherry, and most other fruit-trees, assume something of the conical shape, at least 

 for some years ; but whatever shape it has a tendency to assume, that shape must not be 

 counteracted by the pruner, whose operations must be chiefly negative, or directed to thin- 

 ning out weak and crowded shoots, and preserving an equal volume of branches on one 

 side of the tree as on the other : in technical language, preserving its balance. Knight's 

 directions for this mode of pruning, both in his Treatise on the Apjile and Pear, and in 

 different papers in the Horticultural Transactions, are particularly valuable. For the apple 

 and all standard trees he recommends that the points of the external branches should be 

 every where rendered thin and pervious to the light ; so that the internal parts of the 

 tree may not be wholly shaded by the external parts : the light should penetrate deeply 

 into the tree on every side ; but not any where through it. When the pruner has 

 judiciously executed his work, every part of the tree, internal as well as external, will 

 be productive of fruit ; and the internal pai't, in unfavorable seasons, will rather receive 

 protection than injury from the external. A tree thus pruned, will not only produce 

 much more fruit, but will also be able to support a much heavier load of it, without 

 danger of being broken ; for any given weight will depress the branch, not simply in 

 proportion to its quantity, but in the compound proportion of its quantity and of its 

 horizontal distance from the point of suspension, by a mode of action similar to that 

 of the weight on the beam of the steelyard ; and hence a hundred and fifty pounds, 

 suspended at one foot distance from the trunk, will depress the branch which supports it 

 no more than ten pounds at fifteen feet distance would do. Every tree will, therefore, 

 support a larger weight of fruit without danger of being broken, in proportion as the 

 parts of such weight are made to approach nearer to its centre. Hitt recommends that 

 the shape or figure of standards should be conical, like the natural growth of the fir- 

 tree : and this form, or the pyramidal or sub-cylindrical {en quenouille, Fr.) is decidedly 

 preferred by the French, and universally employed both by them and the Dutch. 



2117. I7i pruning to form dwarf-standards (basse-tiges, Fr.), the plants being received 

 from the nursery, furnished with shoots of one year's growth, are to be cut down to three 

 or four buds, which buds will throw out other shoots the following year, to form the 

 bush or dwarf. If these buds throw out, during the second year, more than can grow 

 the third year without crossing or intermixing with each other, then the superfluous 

 shoots must be cut off ; but if too few to form a head regularly balanced, or projecting 

 equally beyond the stem on all sides, then one or more of the shoots in tlie deficient part 

 must be cut down to three or four eyes, as before, to fill up by shoots of the third year the 

 vacancies in the bush. In this way must the tree be treated year after year, cutting 

 away all cross-placed branches and crowded shoots, till at last it shall have formed a head 

 or bush globular, oblong, or of any other shape, according to its nature, and with this 

 property common to every form, that all the shoots be so far distant from each other as 

 not to cjiclude the sun's rays, air, or rain, from the blossoms and fruit. Such is the 

 u)ost approved modern mode of training fruit-tree bushes or dwarf-standards ; but, 



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