THE GARDENER. 



65 



season for transplanting is as soon as the leaves have 

 fallen in autumn. 



Standard trees may be planted from 20 to 30 feet 

 apart, or where vegetables are intended to be culti- 

 vated, the distances may be 40 feet between the rows, 

 and 20 feet in the rows. Dwarf trees, on quince 

 stocks, will not require more than 15 feet distance. 

 Wall-trees should be at least 20 feet apart, and for 

 some varieties 30 feet will not be too much. 



The modes of training the pear-tree are various. 

 Against walls, the three principal methods are the fan- 

 shape, its reverse the pendulous, and intermediately 

 the horizontal, which is that most generally adopted. 

 In the fan method the central part of the tree, from the 

 upright position of the branches, or their near approach 

 to such, is apt to become too strong. On the contra- 

 ry, the pendulous training induces debility when the 

 trees begin to bear heavy crops. By annually cutting 

 back a central shoot to about a foot, and training 

 branches horizontally, right and left, the vigour of the 

 tree is equally distributed. It often happens that in 

 this mode the branches only produce fruit towards 

 their extremities. When this is the case, a shoot 

 should be encouraged near the origin of the horizontal 

 branch, and trained in the interval, and at some dis- 

 tance, say three feet; farther along the branches an- 

 other may be laid in a similar manner, and so on, care 

 being taken that each is stopped when its elongation 

 reaches the place where another has its origin. These 

 shoots will generally become as fruitful, after two or 

 three years, as the portion of wood of the same age 

 near the extremities of the branches themselves. 



Training against espaliers was formerly more prac- 

 tised than at present. The difficulty of getting the 

 old varieties to bear, apart from a wall, together with 

 the expense of erecting the espalier, and the liability 

 of its materials to decay, have no doubt tended to bring 

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