334 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE CORDON SYSTEM OF FRUIT GROWING. 



The first thing we have to settle is, What is a cordon ? 

 There has been some little discnssion on this point — discus- 

 sion that was utterly needless^ and even mischievous, as 

 tending to prevent the public knowing exactly what the 

 term is used for. It simply means a tree confined to a 

 single stem ; that stem being furnished with spurs, or some- 

 times with little fruiting branches nailed in, as in the case 

 of the peach when trained to one stem. Some contended 

 that it meant any form of branch closely spurred in ; but 



Fig. 140. 



The Apple trained as a Simple Horizontal Cordon, grafted on the French 

 Paradise Stock, and in full bearing. 



this is quite erroneous. The term is never applied to any 

 form of tree but the small and simple stemmed ones. The 

 French have no more need of the word to express a tree 

 trained on the spur system than we have, and they have 

 trained trees on that system for ages without ever calling 

 them by this name. Before it was given to the forms of 

 Apple and Pear and Peach-trees shown in this chapter, or 

 rather before they came into use, it was chiefly applied to a 

 mode of training plants horizontally — each plant resembling 

 what we call the bilateral cordon. (See the engravings illus- 

 trating Vine culture at Thomery.) However, to settle the 

 use of the term, I wrote to Professor Du Breuil, the leading 

 professor of fruit culture in France. His reply was thus 



