90 



old wood, and the intermediate space is covered bv 

 wood-buds. All the latter, therefore, which are be- 

 tween the old wood, a, and the blossom, c (Fig. 5), ex- 



Fig. 5. 



cept the lowest, h, are carefully removed by dis- 

 budding. This never fails to produce a shoot, the 

 growth of which is favoured by destroying the useless 

 spray above the blossoms, and pinching off the points 

 of those which are necessary to perfect the fruit. 

 This is termed the replacing bud. Barren shoots, 

 when too vigorous to be cut down to their low- 

 est eye, are treated exactly in the same manner. 

 At the winter pruning, the branches which have 

 borne fruit are cut down to the insertion of the re- 

 placing shoots, which, in their turn, are disbudded, 

 bear fruit, and are cut out like their predecessors. In 

 cases where the blossom has failed in setting, or the 

 fruit in stoning, when the shoot is too weak to ripen 

 the fruit which are upon it, or when the crop is very 

 early, this operation may be performed at any period 

 in the course of the summer. It is then called return- 



