166 



FRUITS. 



[chap. 



ciples, and applying them under all circumstances, can never 

 be in error. 



247. If the upper secondary branches, favoured by their more 

 perpendicular position, flourish at the expense of the mother- 

 branch, incline them downward, even, if necessary, to touch the 

 mother-branch, to re-establish the equality. And you may also 

 leave some fruit-buds to slacken the sap ; and, at the time of nail- 

 ing, shorten the mother-branch at a strong wood-bud, whilst you 

 take care to prune at a weak one on the branch or branches that 

 you have lowered. In order that both the sides of the tree may be 

 alike, the corresponding secondary branches, both upper and under, 

 should be pruned at buds of the same vigour and at the same 

 height. The same with regard to the mother-branches. 



248. The secondary branches ought to be separate enough to 

 allow of nailing the fruit-branches that they throw out, say about 

 two feet ; but it ought not to be more, because a well-trained tree 

 ought never to leave any space vacant. In a tree completely 

 formed, the wood-branches are pruned at the point where they 

 begin to diminish in size. But this is not a universal rule, for a 

 feeble tree should be pruned shorter to give it strength, and a 

 young and vigorous tree should be pruned much longer. In fruit- 

 branches, too, prune according to the greater or less degree of vi- 

 gour apparent in them. Those branches, the eyes of which are 

 accompanied by a wood-bud, may be shortened to two or four eyes ; 

 but the short branches, or spurs, having clusters of eyes, should not 

 be pruned at all if they have a wood-bud at the extremity. Both, 

 however, should be cut clean off if the wood-buds perish, as they 

 would be sterile. When two branches form a fork, cut out the 

 most feeble. As the fruit-branches bear but once, it is indispen- 

 sable that they be renewed every year ; and do not, as very unskil- 

 ful gardeners do, prune very long and suffer the bud at the extre- 

 mity to furnish the new fruit-branch ; for it inevitably results from 

 this that the branch, besides being weak from one end to the other, 

 will be perfectly barren below the last year's shoot, and will end by 

 dying at the end of two or three years, during which time it will 

 have furnished nothing but thin, long, disproportionate and unpro- 

 ductive twigs ; but, by shortening every year the branch that has 

 borne, and replacing it by one of its own lower buds, you have 

 every year good and vigorous wood, and placed as near as possi- 

 ble to the respective wood-branches. This shortening should be 



