TRAINING AND PRUNING. 



167 



performed as soon as the fruit is all gathered. At Montreuil they 

 call it the r emplacement, or replacing. 



249. Some persons train their trees in what is called the fan 

 form : that is, instead of having but two mother-branches, they 

 will have three or four or even five or six; but, for simpli- 

 city's sake, 1 have given a specimen of a tree trained purely in 

 the French fashion, leaving two branches that might have 

 been carried on to form this tree in the fan fashion. 

 According as their mother-branches are numerous, they are 

 spread open more or less. The principle is, not to deviate 

 from the angle of ninety degrees, or right-angle, more than 

 is necessary for the nailing in of the fruit-branches between 

 the secondary branches ; so that the two lower principal, or mo- 

 ther-branches, may be horizontal, and never more inclined. 

 When you have three or five mother-branches, train the 

 middle one upright. In other respects prune these mother- 

 branches as the French do those 'a la Montreuil ; excepting that, 

 as they furnish more, tliey should be pruned much longer during 

 the two or three first years. 



250. Summer pruning belongs most particularly to the most 

 tender of fruit-trees, and, of course, to the peach-tree ; I shall, 

 therefore, treat of it here to finish the subject of pruning. The 

 operation is generally performed in the month of May, when the 

 young shoots are not more than from eight to ten inches long, 

 and it consists in taking off the superfluous ones. It may be done 

 by the hand, but it is less dangerous, for those that you determine 

 to leave, to do it with a pruning-knife. All the shoots that come 

 immediately before or immediately behind should be severed, and 

 those that you leave at the sides will profit by it. Recollect 

 always that the shoot you save for a wood-branch should be 

 healthy and vigorous ; and if the one best suited to your purpose 

 as to locality be not so, reject it and fix on a lower and healthicF. 

 When the fruit is set, all the shoots proceeding from the bearing 

 branches should be removed, with the exception of those neigh- 

 bouring ones which tend to nourish the fruit by drawing the sap 

 to it, and of those that have been fixed on for the purpose of suc- 

 ceeding the whole branch. Should all the blossoms of a branch 

 be sterile, cut it off, leaving only one or two buds. 



251 . NAILING is also an essential part of training. It is per- 

 formed after the prunings both of winter and summer, only that 



