92 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



for centuries and failed. The more they were cut 

 back the faster and stronger they grew, and it 

 was this severe pruning that gave rise to the now 

 meaningless old saw, " He that plants Pears, plants 

 for his heirs." 



it is apt to climb too fast and too far, the 

 result being that the trees are prone to become slim 

 at base, top-heavy above. This radical evil may be 

 readily prevented by careful stopping of the leaders 

 and side shoots. 



Summer Pinching. — The chief novelty about 

 this is its repetition twice or oftener a year (see 

 Apples, Vol. II., pp. 323, 324). This is all very 

 well under glass, in orchard-houses, or on very 

 warm walls, but is hardly safe in the open air, any- 

 where in England, unless in the 

 warmest and driest districts. It not 

 unfrequently happens that the often- 

 stopped shoot proceeds to break all its 

 reserved force of buds, and looks more 

 like a bunch of greens at the end of 

 the year than a promising Pear-shoot. 

 So alive were the old fruitists to the 

 evils of tbe premature breaking of 

 these reserves, or succession buds, 

 that they ofttimes hesitated to stop 

 back the current shoots, or cut off the 

 breast - wood. By t}'ing down, or 

 hreaking almost wholly through the 

 hreast-wood of Pears, about the middle 

 of June, or early in July, the trees 

 presented the appearance in Fig. 38, 

 and the buds were kept from breaking 

 out of season. 



The practice of pinching, however, 

 concentrates force as well as hastens 

 and heightens fertility. See Fig. 37 

 as an illustration of a persistently 

 pinched Pear-tree in a pot. In this 

 case, however, there were other fruit- 

 producing influences at work, notably 

 the smallness of the pot to the size of 

 the plant, the violent compression of 

 ihe roots, and the necessary scarcity of food. Add 

 to these physical causes, the superior climate afforded 

 by the sunny side of a glass-house until the end of 

 May, and the semi-roasting site of the southern 

 side of a sotith wall throughout the summer and 

 autumn. Under these conditions, and with the 

 strain of a heavy crop in addition, but little wood 

 was made ; and when that little was pinched at every 

 third leaf, the buds plumped up into fertility, and 

 added to their size and hardness throughout the 

 season. This example may be looked upon as fertility 

 carried to its utmost possible limits. 



But pruning and training are equally or more 

 necessary for moulding Pear-trees into form than 

 for intensifying their fertility. The Pear naturally 

 affects the conical or pyramidal form. But without 

 considerable summer pinching or winter pruning 



Fig. 37.— Excessive Fertility 

 of Pot-tree caused by con- 

 stant Pinching. 



Pinching or Stopping the Centre of 

 Pyramids. — In the majority of illustrations of 

 pyramidal trees the leader or centre stem looks as if 

 it had never been stopped. This is, however, very 

 far from being the case. On the contrary, the secret 

 of success in the moulding of such 

 trees into symmetry and perfection 

 lies in one, two, or more stoppings a 

 year. By thus losing to win, the pro- 

 gress of the tree is greatly hastened 

 and accelerated. A yard in height 

 may now be made good all round 

 instead of the old orthodox foot. 

 The earlier the stopping takes place, 

 the more may be done within the 

 year. Suppose the shoots are stopped 

 early in June, the second shoots will 

 be sure to have become sufficiently 

 ripe before the end of the season. 

 Those, again, who apply three or five- 

 leaf measure to the leading as well 

 as the side shoots of their Pears, may 

 make far more substantial progress in 

 furnishing their trees with side shoots, 

 and in many sites and localities the 

 progress is very rapid. 



Overcrowding of the branches is 

 one of the greatest evils in modern 

 Pear-culture. The trees being placed 

 so much more, closel}' together, five- 

 and-twenty or more trees now oc- 

 cupying the area devoted to five 

 only a few years since, there is the 

 less excuse for overcrowding the branches. To 

 prevent this, it is well to start with a system, 

 and rigidly adhere to it. It is found in practice 

 that five side branches to each central break or 

 stoppage of the leader favours the formation of a 

 good pyramid. In fountain-formed pyramids, tiers 

 of branches are brought out from the centre stems 

 at regular intervals, as squirts of water proceed from 

 the upright shaft of a fountain. The branches may 

 either be led out at almost right angles from the 

 stem, or droop back towards the ground in somewhat 

 the same way as the spray of water returns to the 

 basin. Weeping pyramids differ from the fountain 

 in being less regular, more picturesque, and yet 

 equally fruitful and beautiful. Considerable trouble 

 is needful at first to tie, peg, or weight the branches 

 into a drooping direction. But once this is done 



