FRUIT-TREES FOR ESPALIERS AND DWARFS. 



425 



895. //' dwarfs or standards trained in the conical manner are substituted 

 for espaliers, the stems of the trees should be five feet or six feet from the 

 walk, and the path in the inside should be at an equal distance from them. 

 This will give a border of ten feet or twelve feet in width, besides the width 

 of the path ; and if the ground is not dug and the trees carefully trained, an 

 immense quantity of fruit will be produced. If the trees are standards, 

 trained in the spurring-in manner, the line of trees need not be farther than 

 three feet from the walk, and the footpath in the inner side may also be at 

 three feet distance, which will give a border six feet in width. As the 

 spurred-in trees will grow twelve feet high, and if on dwarfing-stocks, and 

 the border not dug, will bear abundantly, we know no mode in which so 

 much fruit can be produced on so limited a surface of ground, excepting 

 always the espalier mode, by which the trees do not occupy above a foot in 

 width. In order to prevent the roots of espaliers, dwarfs, cones, and all 

 other border-trees from extending among the culinary vegetables, they may 

 be cut off every three or four years about a foot from the inner path, and 

 the soil being there enriched, abundant nutriment will be supplied to keep 

 the trees in a bearing state. 



Espalier-rails are variously constructed. The simplest mode is to 

 drive in stakes, which may be of young larch trees, or of any other young 

 wood disbarked and steeped in Burnett's composition, at two feet apart, with 

 temporary stakes of a slight description between ; the latter being for the 

 purpose of training forward the grow- 

 ing shoot of each horizontal branch 

 from one permanent stake to another, 1 

 during the growing season. Thus in | 

 fig. 832, Nos. 1, 2, 8, and 4, represent 

 permanent stakes, and a, &, tern- Fig. 332. Prcgressive Espaiier-raii. 

 porary ones. These latter may be removed from between Nos. 1 and 2 when 

 they are no longer of any use there, and placed between Nos. 2 and 8 till the 

 growing shoots obtain a bearing on the stake No. 8, when they may be 

 removed to the space between Nos. 8 and 4, and so on. 



Another mode is to drive in stakes of the proper height, and eight inches or 

 nine inches apart, beginning at the centre of each tree, and extending them on 

 each side as the tree advances in growth. In the first stage of training, the stakes 

 require to stand as close together as twelve inches or fourteen inches, and to be 

 arranged in regular order to the full height of five feet, with a rail slightly 

 fastened on the top of them for neatness' sake, as well as to steady them. 

 If stakes of small ash, Spanish chesnut, or the like, from coppices or thin- 

 nings of young plantations, be used, they will last for three or four years, 

 provided they are from one and a half to two inches in diameter at a foot 

 from, the bottom. They need not be extended further, in the first instance, 

 than the distance to be considered probable the trees may reach in three 

 years' growth : at that period, or the following season, they will all re([uire 

 to be removed, and the new ones may be placed on each side, to the extent 

 that the trees may be thought to require while these stakes last, finishing 

 the top, as before, with a rail. As the trees extend their horizontal branches 

 and acquire substance, the two stakes on each side of the one that supports 

 the centre leader of the tree can be spared, and removed to any of the 

 extremities where wanted. And as the tree extends further and acquires 

 more substance, every other stake will be found sufficient ; and the centre 



