168 



PRUITS. 



[CMAP. 



in the latter, it is not done till the shoots are strong enough to 

 bear the constraint without danger of breaking. It may be well 

 deferred, especially in old trees, till the month of July, or even 

 August : 01 better still never to do it till the trees are found to 

 require it. The ooject is to keep the branches in their proper and 

 assigned position, and it is done (when there is no trellis against 

 the wall) by means of shreds, and nails driven into the wall, by 

 which the branches are supported. When there is a trellis, you 

 tie with matting. To nail well, you must bend the shoots and 

 branches without effort, without making sharp angles, and yet 

 make them stretch to their utmost in the form of a wide V. So 

 manage it that each branch and its shoots shall assume the form 

 of the tree ; so that every part of the tree be furnished, the mid- 

 dle, the sides, and the upper and lower parts ; and so that all the 

 ramifications of the tree be spaced according to their size, with- 

 out confusion or entanglement, and that the eye may follow them 

 with distinctness. 



252. Before I conclude my instructions relative to the pruning 

 of the peach against the wall, let me speak of an operation which 

 is not probably of modern invention, and which is applicable to 

 all fruit-trees : it is called the annulary incision, or operation of 

 ringing, which is the cutting out of a narrowish strip of bark all 

 round the collar of a tree, or round one of its branches only. It 

 may be done with any sharp instrument. The annulary incision 

 is performed a few days before the blossoming of a fruit-tree, and, 

 by retarding the flow of sap, causes it to tend to fruit ; but fine 

 fruit obtained in this manner weakens the tree or the branch on 

 which it is borne; an% according as the plant is more or less 

 strong and the operation is renewed more or less often, it is sure 

 to perish. This operation maybe performed on plants or parts of 

 plants of which the too vigorous sap thwarts the plans of the gar- 

 dener in the training of his trees ; but let him consider it only as a 

 remedy against superabounding sap, let him be cautious in the use 

 of it even then, and let him never cut a wider piece out than will 

 close again in the same summer, which would be about half an 

 inch. 



233. Having now done with the wall-tree training and prunino;, 

 with the exception of what is to be said as peculiarly applicable to 

 each sort of tree, the rides for pruning and training wh.ch differ 

 from those for the peach, and which additional observations are, 



