170 



FRUITS. 



[chap. 



an espalier, but of which you bring the extremities of the two 

 sides round in a circle to meet each other, and to form a large 

 vase or goblet open at the top and tapering down to an inverted 

 cone at bottom. To procure this, prune the young tree so as to 

 have 4 or 5 branches as near to one another as possible at the 

 top of the stem. Manage these principal branches as you do those 

 of the wall-tree ; but rub or cut off all shoots or buds that are 

 putting forth towards the inside of the goblet, as these would soon 

 fill it and destroy the form. The principal branches are 

 brought into form by means of one or two hoops, as occasion 

 requires. 



256. BUSH TRAINING is rarely exercised excepting iii the 

 case of dwarf apple-trees, of which the gardeners will sometimes 

 have a square. It is suffering the tree to take its own natural 

 form, and pruning only for the purpose of keeping up an equal 

 quantity of the wood and bearing branches. 



257. HALF-STANDARDS.— If the plant have been grafted 

 where it is to stand, nothing can be done the first year ; but if it 

 be a young transplanted tree, shorten the graft down to 2 or 3 

 buds. The next year choose the strongest bud to lengthen the 

 stem, and pinch the others off at about 6 inches length to favour 

 the one you have saved, and which is to form the trunk of the 

 tree. If, out of this,^ there come lateral shoots, prune them short, 

 in little stumps, that is, at one or two buds, and let them remain 

 till the autumnal pruning, when you must cut these oil close to 

 the stem as well as those that you pinched off to favour the first 

 saved shoot. And thus you continue heightening the tree more 

 and more every year, till it shall have reached the height you 

 wish, whether of standard or half-standard. If, before it get to 

 the height you desire, it should fork, pmch off the weakest of the 

 two shoots as soon as it is 3 or 4 inches long, and cut it clean out 

 at the winter pruning succeeding ; or if it should become distorted 

 or should break off by some accident, either pinch off, or cut, 

 immediately below the damaged part, and, in the winter pruning, 

 shorten it down to the strongest bud below that you have, one 

 that you have been favouring for the purpose since you perceived 

 the mischief above, and that will supply you with a fresh unda- 

 i*liged stem. If the tree arrive at the height you desire in the 

 summer, pinch it off a little above that point, and cut down to the 

 exact height you wish it in your first succeeding winter pruning ; 



