Book I. 



PRUNING AND TRAINING, 



491 



keep a luxuriant tree full of wood tends to make it less rampant : but a crowded intricacy 

 is to be avoided ; for the air stagnates in a thicket of spray and foliage, while the sun 

 cannot penetrate it : hence the new shoots grow long-jointed, and do not ripen thoroughly ; 

 and the blossom-buds forming on the bearers for the following year will be fewer and 

 less plump. All the shoots rising after midsummer are to be displaced, unless a va- 

 cuity cannot be furnished without reserving some of them ; or unless the excessive luxu- 

 riance of a plant makes it proper to cut it as little as possible, and to let the sap expend 

 itself in numerous channels. The spring shoots laid in are generally to be preserved at 

 full length, as far as the limits will permit, until after the fall of the leaf ; because to stop 

 them in summer would cause them to shoot from alinost every eye, and fill the wall with 

 spray ; hence, when a vacancy wants several branches to furnish it, it is a good resource 

 to shorten a strong contiguous shoot to three or four eyes. This is the exception to the 

 rule. 



2579. Winter pruning of trees in bearing. Now a final selection is to be made from 

 the last year's shoots retained as candidates during the summer. On established trees 

 which have fully ripened their shoots, and of which the young wood is not succulent, 

 and therefore susceptible of injury from frost, there is a wide latitude of time for the 

 capital or winter pruning, extending from the fall of the leaf to the time of the sun's 

 rising, or just before. To prune in autumn strengthens a plant, and will bring the 

 blossom-buds more forward : to cut the wood late in spring, tends to check a plant, and 

 is one of the remedies for excessive luxuriance. At the opening of spring, the blossom- 

 buds can be certainly distinguished, which is a great guide to the judgment in many 

 critical cases ; but on the other hand, if the blossom-buds get much swelled, they are 

 liable to be bruised or knocked off, in the various operations of untacking, cutting, and 

 re-nailing the branches. Supposing the common course of winter pruning to be divided 

 into three periods — autumn, the cold months of winter, and the beginning of spring 

 — the plants to be excepted from the first two, are, uniformly the fig, when not in 

 a forcing-house, the vine for the most part, because the autumn is seldom hot and fine 

 suflSciently long to ripen the year's shoots. Some except the peach and nectarine from 

 the middle period, but not from the first ; because they say, that if a severe frost happen 

 immediately to follow the pruning, the points of the unripened shoots, and particularly 

 the wood-bud next to the cut, are generally so much hurt, that there must be a second 

 shortening, farther in than was intended to furnish these shoots with leaders. 



2580. The number of good shoots to be retained is limited by the character of the tree, the size to which 

 the fruit grows, and the compass to be given to the head. The branches of a wall-tree may be from five 

 to ten inches asunder, according to its strength and the size of the fruit. Of fruit-shoots those are the 

 best which are short-jointed, and show a competent number of blossom-buds, and on which the series of 

 blossom-buds commences nearest to the origin of the shoots, especially on that class which must have the 

 bearers annually shortened. Spongy or disproportionately large and gouty shoots are bad alike for 

 wood and fruit ; but good shoots for wood may be above the middle size, if the buds are well defined j 

 and the best shoots for fruit may incline to slenderness, if not wiry and sapless ; disproportionably large 

 shoots are seldom fruitful. In choosing large supplies for wood, other things being equal, the lowest new 

 branches on the tree, and the last year's laterals nearest to the origin of a branch, are to be preferred. 

 Begin at the bottom and middle of the tree ; keep these furnished without intricacy ; and the ex- 

 tremities will be easily managed. Such shoots as are preserved, whether to come in immediately as 

 bearers, or to furnish naked parts in the figure, or future supplies of wood, are to be treated according to 

 the mode of bearing. 



Class bearing on distinct branches. On those species which bear at the ends of the branches, or on 

 spurs for several years in succession, the leading shoot of a fruit-branch is always to be retained, on a 

 double account ; and the fruit-branches are not to be shortened where they do not exceed the assigned 

 limits for the tree ; because, if stopped, these would send out strong wood-shoots, where blossom-buds or 

 fruit-spurs had otherwise been produced. 



2581. Exceptions to this rule : on young trees tinder training, to be furnished with a head, shorten the 

 branches until the designed figure is complete ; again, though a tree be established, occasionally shorten 

 a branch, to bring out wood to fill a vacancy. The surplus of the last year's shoots, which would crowd, 

 or disfigure, or too much weaken the tree, or occupy it without promise, are to be cut out clean to the 

 parent branch ; also cut away any old branches which appear decayed, or of which the spurs begin to get 

 barren. Finally, take off' close the naked barren stumps left at previous amputations. 



2582. Class bearing on last yearns wood only. On trees which bear on the last year's wood, there is a 

 necessity for annually shortening alternate divisions of the branches, in order to provide a supply of new 

 shoots for bearing the next season. We prune the longer branches of a luxuriant plant, and the shorter 

 of a weak plant in an inverted proportion. Were the strong tree much cut in, it would produce only the 

 more wood ; while the weak tree, unless relieved by short pruning, would not long continue to bear. 

 Very strong shoots may be left eighteen inches long, or lose but a fourth of their length ; extremely weak 

 shoots retrench to half their length, whether that be five, six, eight or ten inches ; prune shoots of medium 

 growth to the extent which best consults the double object of leaving as many blossom-buds as may be on 

 the shoot, and of forcing out new wood at a well placed eye. In shortening cut at a leaf or wood-bud 

 that is likely to yield a leading shoot. Leaf-buds are distinguished by being oblong, narrow, and de- 

 pressed ; blossom-buds by being rounder and bolder. If a leaf-bud at a suitable distance is found between 

 twin blossom-buds, so much the better. A leading shoot at the point of a bearing branch draws nourish- 

 ment for the intervening fruit. The thinning of rejected shoots, and decayed or worn-out bearers, is 

 nearly as for the other class. 



2583. Mixed class. There is a small anomalous class which bears frequently on spurs of several years' 

 continuance as well as on annual shoots, but chiefly on the latter. Shoots of this class are to have a mixed 

 treatment, preserving the fertile spurs as much as may be. Having finished pruning a wall-tree, lay in the 

 branches and shoots directly ; tacking them in a neat manner to the wall or treUis. {Abercrombie.) 



2584. Winter pruning to be revised. Revise the pruning when a sufficient time has 

 •lapsed to see it with another eye ; or when the expansion of the blossoms decides the 



