GLEANINGS ON HORTICULTURE. 



45 



straight board four and a quarter inches wide, and as long as the 

 wall is high. After the first perpendicular row is inserted in the 

 alternate courses, one edge of the board is placed against them, 

 and a straight line drawn down the other edge as a guide by 

 which to drive the second row in triangular order (quincunx 

 order), and so on till the work is completed. The upright lines 

 should be proved with the plumb-line once in four or five yards, 

 in order to prevent any deviation from the perpendicular. The 

 shoots must be tied to these studs with Cuba-bast ; and a good 

 workman will twist the bast, after it has been dipped in water, 

 and tie the shoots in half the time that he would nail them with 

 shreds. 



Placing wire trainers or wooden trellis on walls is very 

 objectionable ; for the young shoots get behind them, and the 

 distance at which the trained shoots are kept from the wall 

 deprives them of warmth : and these systems are much more 

 expensive. The shoots, also, unless made too fast, are liable to 

 become half sawn through, by rubbing continually against the 

 wires or trellis. The only situation where they become necessary 

 is against the lower part of the flues in hot walls in forcing-houses. 



REMARKS ON WALL-TREES. 



Never cut out or shorten luxuriant shoots if it can be avoided, 

 but lay them in, and they will produce bearing-wood the follow- 

 ing year, and take care that no shoot be trained perpendicularly. 

 This practice will not render the lower part of the peach or 

 apricot tree naked. On the contrary, trees suffer much by too 

 fi-eely using the knife, (especially the apricot,) except when any 

 portion of the inner bark adheres to the alburnum after a circle 

 has been made, to render it more productive, though ever so 

 small, or the communication will soon be established with the 

 root, and no effect will be produced. In about ten days after the 

 operation has been performed, the part should be examined, and 

 any small portion separated. I have for years had success from 

 adopting this practice, and I also attribute it to the galvanized 

 iron coping above the trees ; it preserves the bearing shoots from 

 frost, and with the use of straw-hurdles and fir-boughs, efl^ec- 

 tually protects all the blossom-buds. 



In fig-trees trained against walls, I cut away the old wood, 

 when new shoots can be trained in as substitutes from the lower 

 extremities of each tree during the winter pruning. The fruit 



