PEUNING AND TRAINING. 



133 



making incisions around the branch, or if wished to change 

 a fruit into a wood-branch, raise it into a vertical position 

 and prune it to two or three buds, on which we concen- 

 trate the action of the sap and induce them to grow 

 vigorously. 



V. — The leaves serve to prepare the sap absorbed by the 

 roots for the nourishment of the tree, and aid in the for- 

 mation of buds on the shoots. All trees therefore, de- 

 prived of their leaves, are liable to perish. Hence, the 

 leaves should never be removed from a tree tinder the 

 pretext of aiding the growth, or ripening the fruit, as de- 

 prived of leaves trees cannot grow, neither can their fruit 

 mature. 



VI. — When the buds of any shoot or branch do not de- 

 velop e before the age of two years, they can be forced into 

 activity only by a very close pruning, and in some cases, 

 as the peach, even this will fail. Hence the main branches 

 should be trimmed so as to secure a development of their 

 successive sections, and so shortened in as not to allow 

 the production of long, naked stems, leaving the interior 

 of the tree bare of shoots, and consequently unproductive. 



In order to induce trees to grow in any particular form, 

 it is not so much labor as continued attention that is re- 

 quired. A thorough pruning once a year will not pro- 

 duce the desired effect, but a little attention two or three 

 times a week during the growing season, will be sufficient 

 to examine every shoot in an acre of garden trees, and the 

 eye is very soon trained so as to detect at a glance the 

 shoots that require attention. (Du Breuil, Bindley, 

 Barry, etc.) 



Training. — The principal objects of training are to 

 render plants more productive of fruits and flowers than 

 if left to grow voluntarily, also to form screens of various 

 running plants to keep any unsightly object from view. 

 The points to be attended to, are to entirely cover the 



