4 TREATISE ON THE CULTURE AND 



fbr the plants should make choice of those which have the 

 strongest and cleanest stems ; and if he can procure such as 

 have been headed down, (to use the phrase of the nursery-men) 

 of two or three years growth, they will bear and fill the walls 

 much sooner than those which have not been so treated. He 

 should make choice of trees with one stem ; or, if they have 

 two, one of them should be cut off ; for by planting those with 

 two stems the middle of the tree is left naked, and, of course, 

 one third of the wall remains uncovered. 



I know that it is the practice of many to make choice of 

 trees with the smallest stems ; but these always produce weaker 

 shoots than the others. 



On preparing the Borders^* 



If the borders wherein the trees are to be planted be new, 

 they should be made two feet and a half or three feet deep, of 

 good light fresh loam. If the trees are to be planted in old 

 borders, where the earth has been injured by the roots of the 

 former trees, it will be necessary to take out the old mould at 

 least three feet deep, and four feet wide, filling up the hole 

 with fres^j loam, and taking care to plant the trees about eight 

 inches higher than the level of the old border, to allow for the 

 sinking of the earth, that they may not be too deep in the 

 ground ; but this will be more fully treated of in the chapter 

 on Pear-trees. 



When the trees are planted, they should by no means be 

 headed down till they begin to throw out fresh shoots. Strong 

 trees should be cut a foot from the graund , and those that are 

 weak, about half that length. 



In backward seasons, they should not be headed down so 

 early ; never until the buds are fairly broken ; always observ- 

 ing to cut sloping towards the wall, and as near to an eye as 

 possible, that the young leading shoot may cover the cut ; [See 

 Plate 1. Fig, 1.] which operation should be again performed in 

 the next March or April-f-. The shoots that are then thrown 

 out must be trained horizontally, to cover the wall. The num- 

 ber of these to be left out ought to be from three to six on 



* The American readei* will not readily know what is here meant by the 

 word Borders; it is therefore necessary to observe to him, that the finer kinds 

 of fruit trees are, in England, trained against walls, and that there is generally 

 a walk goes round the garden, running in a parallel line with the wall, at the 

 distance of about ten feet from it; the space between the walk and the wall, is 

 called the Border ; so that, when the author speaks of the soil and tillage of 

 the Borders, he is merely speaking of the soil and tillage of the land, in which 

 the several trees are, or may, be planted. 



t The same season v/ill do for the IMiddle States of America. 



