FRUITS. 



[chap. 



to bet me a hundred to one, or more, agamst my opinion. 1 de- 

 clined the bet ; but he promised that, when he gathered the fruit, 

 which was to be done in a few days, he would have it measured, 

 and give me an account of the result, which, to his utter astonish- 

 ment, he found to be that the espalier contained half a bushel 

 more than both the other trees put together. The eye always 

 deceives itself in comparing things irregularly placed with things 

 placed with regularity. So much, then, for the training of espa- 

 liers. The pruning, that is to say, the pruning of the limbs, is 

 as follows. Apples, and indeed all the other trees which I have 

 spoken of to be planted for espaliers, bear upon spurs, some 

 shorter, and some longer ; not like peach-trees which have their 

 fruit upon shoots of the last year. Sometimes, indeed, apples, 

 and these other trees, will bear upon the last year's wood, but 

 generally they bear upon spurs, which come out of the sides of 

 the limb itself until it gets to be very large, and afterwards come 

 out of the lower buds of little side-shoots that have been cut off ; 

 and these spurs last for a great many years. When you gather 

 an apple in the fall, you will, if the tree be in vigour, see a blos- 

 som-bud, ready, coming out of the same spur, to bear the next 

 year ; and I ought to observe here that the greatest possible care 

 should be taken (as it never is) not to pull off the spur when you 

 pull off the apple. Gentlemen who are curious in these things 

 actually cut off cherries with a scissors, except the morellos, and 

 one or two other sorts, which bear pretty generally on the last 

 year's wood, to avoid the danger of pulling off the spurs. It being 

 the fact that the trees bear upon spurs, there needs no new sup- 

 ply of limbs or of shoots ; and, therefore, the little side-shoots that 

 come out of the limbs ought to be cut clean out about the latter 

 end of July, unless there be a deficiency of spurs upon the limb ; 

 and, in that case, the little side-shoots should be cut off, leaving 

 die bud, or perhaps two, if the joints be short, and these will 

 frequently send out spurs. Let us now go back to the second 

 year after planting the tree, when we had got two lateral shoots 

 running horizontally, and one upright shoot. Each of these lateral 

 shoots will send out two side-shoots near their point, and one at 

 their point, to go straight forward : that one is to be suffered to 

 go on, but the others must be shortened to one hud : the same 

 thing will happen next year, when the same operation is to be 

 performed, and at the same season : thus, at last, you have a limb 



