PRUNING AND TRAINING. 



393 



is soft. By this practice the juices supplied 

 from the roots, and the gases received from the 

 atmosphere, will be concentrated in the branches, 

 and better fruit be obtained." The second, in 

 following up a somewhat similar principle, ob- 

 serves ; " If pruning commenced with the grow- 

 ing season, and was judiciously carried on, the 

 result would be very different from what arises 

 from the bad practice of allowing a tree at mid- 

 summer to present the appearance of an un- 

 dipped hedge. The tree might well make a 

 rapid and simultaneous outbreak from all parts; 

 and even if the superfluous wood was left on 

 the tree until the winter-pruning, the rapid out- 

 break in spring, although not to such an extent 

 as it had been in summer, will yet be much 

 greater than is consistent with the permanent 

 wellbeing or fruitfulness of the tree ; for as sure 

 as these strong growths are cut away after hav- 

 ing become strong, so sure will the tree make 

 vigorous efforts to replace them, unless the sup- 

 ply from the roots is interrupted. Hence the 

 great good of root-pruning, or, what is perhaps 

 better with young trees during the first three or 

 four years after planting out, when they are so 

 very apt to make strong wood, of lifting and 

 replanting them. If pruning begins as soon as 

 shoots appear where they are not wanted, a 

 great deal of wall may be gone over in a short 

 time. The trees by this method will pre- 

 sent a neat and healthy appearance; and the 

 young wood, by being freely exposed to the 

 action of sun and air, will be well ripened. 

 Respecting leaves, when they are produced in 

 great quantity, they are generally small, and 

 small leaves are by no means so efficient as 

 larger ones are. Take the vine for example. 

 If the foliage is good, and has been properly ex- 

 posed to the influence of light, &c, the wood 

 will be strong, the eyes plump, and, under 

 favourable circumstances, a good crop will be 

 produced. Now, the reason of all this is very 

 obvious — it is breadth and health of foliage, and 

 not numerical quantity, that is requisite to ela- 

 borate the juices of a plant ; two or three large 

 and healthy leaves are better than a dozen 

 small ones. Physiologists are in error when 

 they forbid us to prune a forest tree because a 

 few of its leaves would be lost. This remark is 

 equally applicable to fruit trees ; but still I am 

 no advocate for putting the axe-and-saw mode 

 into general use. Pruning, to be efficacious, 

 whether on fruit or forest trees, should be per- 

 formed as soon as the part to be rejected is 

 capable of removal." 



The object of summer pruning seems to be 

 twofold, — namely, the production of artificial 

 spurs, on which fruit-buds are expected to form, 

 and relieving the tree of superabundant growth, 

 as well as admitting sun and light to insure the 

 ripening of the fruit. The encouragement of 

 artificial spurs is wholly unnecessary; their exis- 

 tence is a scourge on the trees, drawing that 

 nourishment from the soil by the roots for their 

 useless support, that by better management 

 would be directed to the enlargement of the 

 fruit and the healthy condition of the trees. No 

 doubt fruit-buds are sometimes formed upon 

 these spurs, and in some varieties of trees more 



than on others ; they, however, in course of 

 time, as the spur enlarges, become situated so 

 distant from the wall as to derive little more 

 benefit from it than if they were growing on 

 open standards. All fruit trees, such as the 

 apple, pear, &c, have, within their wood, up to 

 a considerable age, abundance of latent buds 

 ready to be called into action, and these are 

 called into action when the necessary conditions 

 are complied with, and one of these conditions 

 is a total removal of all artificial spurs during 

 the winter'-pruning. This undeniable fact shows 

 the absurdity of summer- pruning with a view to 

 the production of fruit-buds, as these will be 

 abundantly produced wherever the artificial 

 spurs are discouraged, and being set close on 

 the branches, and near the wall, derive that 

 benefit from radiated heat for which walls are 

 especially constructed. 



Pruning standard fruit-trees. — The principal 

 object here is to modify the head, and to thin 

 the branches so that the sun and air may pene- 

 trate to every part, so that the fruit may ripen 

 throughout the whole tree in an equal manner. 

 All standard fruit-trees should be allowed to 

 assume their own natural habit of growth, and 

 those habits are various — some throwing out 

 their branches horizontally, others almost up- 

 right or fastigate, some drooping, and others 

 very irregular. Such habits should not be in- 

 terfered with ; a reduction of redundant or mis- 

 placed branches, together with all useless spray 

 and dead spurs and shoots, should only be 

 effected. All fantastically formed heads in stand- 

 ard fruit-trees only tend to defeat the real object 

 for which they were planted ; and although very 

 copious directions have been laid down by most 

 writers on the subject, from the days of Mascall 

 downwards, modern pomologists agree with us in 

 allowing every tree to assume its own natural habit. 

 " If the tree is to be left to its natural shape, which 

 is by far the best, it will, in the apple, pear, cherry, 

 and most other fruit trees, assume something of 

 the conical shape, at least for some years ; bxit 

 whatever shape it has a tendency to assume, that 

 shape must not be counteracted by the pruner, 

 whose operations must be chiefly negative, or 

 directed to thinning out the weak and crowded 

 shoots, and preserving an equal volume of 

 branches on one side of the tree or on the 

 other, — in technical language, preserving its 

 balance." — Encyc. of Gard. The directions for 

 this mode of pruning, laid down by Thomas 

 A. Knight, in his " Treatise on the Apple and 

 the Pear," as also in various of his interesting 

 papers in the " Trans, of the Hort. Soc," are of 

 great practical utility. The essence of them is, 

 that the points of the external branches should 

 be everywhere rendered thin and pervious to 

 the light, so that the internal parts of the tree 

 may not be wholly shaded by the extex^nal parts : 

 the light should penetrate deeply into the tree 

 on every side, but not anywhere through it. 

 When the pruner has judiciously performed his 

 work, every part of the tree, internal as well as 

 external, will be productive of fruit ; and the 

 internal part, in unfavourable seasons, will rather 

 receive protection than injury from the external. 

 A tree thus pruned will not only produce much 



