50 



THE GARDENER. 



two or more preceding years. It is obvious, then, 

 that these three classes of fruit trees require a peculiar 

 method of pruning."* 



The same able writer (Dr. Lindley) dwells upon 

 the fact that the season of maturity may be changed 

 by pruning in a certain manner — as in the case of the 

 raspberry, from which a second crop may be obtained 

 in autumn, by taking away the most vigorous stems 

 (which otherwise would produce fruit-bearing wood) 

 to within two or three eyes of the bottom. The sap, 

 if the first elements of the fruit in spring be de- 

 stroyed, serves to form fresh fruit buds, which of 

 course produce, by this retarding treatment, at a more 

 advanced season. 



The general object of pruning is to render plants as 

 productive as possible, and to make them assume the 

 most appropriate form : their fertility is promoted by 

 cutting away redundant growth, and giving to the sap 

 the precise direction in which it is required to flow : 

 if a tree or other plant be too luxuriant for the space 

 to which it is limited and disposed to vegetate to ex- 

 cess, the knife and the rubbing off buds subdue its 

 too great vigour, reduce it to proper limits, and com- 

 pel it — with the aid of training — instead of increasing 

 its bulk and vigour by superabundant leaf branches, 

 to bear blossoms and fruit: moderating the flow of 

 sap, and producing a partial stagnation of it by the 

 combined means of pruning and training, give the 

 desired tendency to fruit-bearing. If a great portion 

 of the shoots and buds which fruit trees produce every 

 year were not removed at the proper seasons, their 

 fruit would degenerate in size and quality; but by 

 taking away some of them, the remainder acquire 

 greater vigour ; and on the same principle, by remov- 

 ing a branch, or part of one, the remaining portion is 



Theory of Horticulture. 



