708 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



4448. Pruning and training wall-trees. As a wall-tree or espalier, the pear is always 

 trained in the horizontal manner on account of its luxuriant growth. Harrison trains 

 most pear-trees in this way, and proceeds exactly as he does in training the apple-tree. 

 (4427 ) But, " when it occurs that a tree trained after this method still continues un- 

 fruitful for several years after plantings the branches must be trained in a pendulous 

 manner, and more or less so, according to the luxuriancy of the tree, but always com- 

 mence the training in the horizontal method, and afterwards change the direction of 

 the branches as required." (Tr. on Fruit Trees, 144.) The ordinary distance at which 

 he trains the side shoots is nine or ten inches, but the jargonelle he lays in at twelve 

 inches, so as to liave room for laying in side shoots from the spurs, for one or more years. 

 This he finds checks the luxuriancy of the tree, and keeps it in full beai-ing. (7V. on 

 Fruit Trees, 159.) 



4449. Forsyth, in training a young pear-tree, shortens the leading shoot in March, 

 and when the shoots it produces are very -strong, he says, " I cut the leading shoot 

 twice in one season ; by this method 1 get two sets of side shoots in one year, which en- 

 ables me the sooner to cover the wall. The second cutting is performed about the mid- 

 dle of June," [Tr. on Fruit Trees, 193.) 



4450. Established wall-trees and espaliers will require a summer and winter pruning, 

 and the following are Abercrombie's directions : — 



44'51. Summer pruning. While the spray is young and soft, but not until the wood-shoots can be dis- 

 tinguished from spurs, rub oJf" the fore-right, the disorderly, spongy, and superfluous shoots of the year, 

 father than let them grow woody, so as to require the knife. Retain some of the most promising, well 

 placed, lateral, and terminal shoots, always keeping a leader to eadi main branch, where tlve space will 

 permit. Leave the greater number on young trees not fully supplied with branches. Train in these at 

 their full length, all summer, in order to have a choice of young wood in the winter pruning. Occa- 

 sionally on old trees, or others, where any considerable vacancy occurs, some principal contiguous shoot 

 may be shortened in June to a few eyes, for a supply of several new shoots the same season. 



The vjinter pruning may be performed any time from the beginning of November until the begin- 

 ning of April. If on young trees, or others, a further increase of branches is necessary to fill up either 

 the prescribed space, or any casual vacuity, retain some principal shoots of last summer, to be trained for 

 that purpose. As, however, many young shoots will have arisen on the wood-branches and bearers, of 

 which a great part are redundant and disorderly, but which have received some regulation in the summer 

 pruning, we must now cut tliese out close to the mother branches, while we are preserving the best in the 

 more open parts. Examine the parent branches, and if any are very irregular, or defective in growth, 

 either cut them out close, or prune thorn to some eligible lateral to supply the place ; or if any branches 

 be over-extended, they may be pruned in to such a lateral, or to a good fruit-bud. Cut out the least 

 regular of the too crowded ; also any casually declined bearers ; with decayed, cankery, and dead wood. 

 The retained supply of laterals and terminals should be laid as much at length as the limits allow, in order 

 to furnish a more abundant quantity of fruit-buds. During both courses of pruning,^be particularly care- 

 ful to preserve all the orderly fruit-spurs emitted at the sides and ends of the bearers : if, however, any 

 large, rugged, projecting spurs, and woody barren stumps or snags occur, cut them clean away close to 

 the branches, which will render the bearers more productive of fruit-buds, and regular in appearance. As 

 each tree is pruned, nail or tie the branches and shoots to the wall or trellis. If afterwards,, in conse- 

 quence of either pruning out improper or decayed wood, or of former insufficient training, there are any 

 material vacuities or irregularities in the arrangement, un-nail the misplaced and contiguous branches, and 

 lay them in order. 



4452. KnighVs mode of training the pear-tree is as follows : " A young pear-stock, which had two 

 lateral branches upon each side, and was about six feet high, was planted against a wall early in the 

 spring of 1810 ; and it was grafted in each of its lateral branches, two of which sprang out of the stem, 

 about four feet from the ground, and the other at its summit in the following year. The shoots these 

 grafts produced, when about a foot long, were trained downwards, the luidermost nearly perpendicu- 

 larly, and the uppermost just below the horizontal Une, placing them at such distances that the leaves of 

 one shoot did not at all shade those of another. In the next year, tlie same mode of training was conti- 

 nued, and in the year following I obtained an abundant crop of fruit. An old St. Germain pear-tree, 

 of the spurious kind, had been trained in the fan-form, against a north-west wall in my garden, and the 

 central branches, as usually happens in old trees thus trained, had L ng reached the top of the wall, 

 and had become wholly unproductive. The other branches afforded but very little fruit, and that never 

 acquiring maturity, v/as consequently of no value ; so that it was necessary to change the variety, as well as 

 to render the tree productive To attain these purposes, every branch which did not want at least twenty 

 degrees of being perpendicular, was taken out at its base j and the spurs upon every other branch, which 

 I intended to retain, were taken ofF closely with the saw and chisel. Into these branches, at their sub- 

 divisions, grafts were inserted at different distances from the root, and some so near the extremities of the 

 branches, that the tree extended as widely in the autumn, after it was grafted, as it did in the pre- 

 ceding year. The grafts were also so disposed, that every part of the space the tree previously covered, 

 was equally well supplied with young wood. As soon, in the succeeding summer, as the young shoots 

 had attained sufficient length, they were trained almost perpendicularly downwards, between the larger 

 branches and the wall to which they were nailed. The most perpendicular remaining branch, upon each 

 side, was grafted about four feet below the top of the wall, which is twelve feet high ; and the young 

 shoots, which the grafts upon these afforded, were trained inwards, and bent down to occupy the space 

 from which the old central branches had been taken away j and therefore very little vacant space any 

 where remained in the end of the first autumn. A few blossoms, but not any fruit, were produced by 

 several of the grafts in the succeeding spring j but in the following year, and subsequently, I have had 

 abundant crops, equally dispersed over every part of «-he tree." 



4453. Heading down and j^ruiiing old pear-trees. ' ' The method of pruning pear- 

 trees," Forsyth observes, <' is very different from that practised for apple-trees in ge- 

 neral. The constant practice has been to have great spurs, as big as a man's arm, 

 standing out from the walls, from a foot to eighteen inches or upwards." The constant 

 cutting of these spurs, he says, brings on the canker, and the fruit produced is small, 

 spotted, and kernelly. Forsyth's practice with such trees was to cut them down, and 

 renew the soil at their roots, and he refers to beurr^ pear (Jig. 486. ), restored from an 

 inch and a half of bark, which, in 179G, bore four hundred and fifty fine large pears, &g. 



