PRUNING AND TRAINING. 



23 



UTILITY OF TRAINING. 



Training, properly applied to fruit trees, gives the 

 following result : — 



1. It enables us to impart to trees a form suitable to 

 the place they are intended to occupy. Thus we may 

 desire to give to standards (trees that are not nailed 

 against a wall or trellis) the pyramidal form, or the 

 form of a yase. 



Trees trained in these forms give larger and more 

 abundant fruit than when left to themselves ; and 

 when become tall trees, they occupy less space than 

 others. Training applied to espaliers makes the trees 

 develop their wood in a regular and systematic manner, 

 and compels them to occupy usefully the whole surface of 

 the wall or space assigned to them. 



2. By means of training, each of the principal 

 branches of the tree is furnished with fruit-branches 

 throughout its full extent. This result is most re- 

 markable in the stone fruits, and especially in the 

 peach, the branches of which, if not trained, would 

 rapidly degenerate, and grow only towards the top. 



3. Training renders the fructification more equal ; 



