THE SUMMER PRUNING OF FRUIT TREES. 



493 



quite as often the case during a growing season, the growth is made the 

 same autumn. The result is much the same as that obtained by clipping 

 a hawthorn hedge in July and again at Christmas. I believe there is a 

 Scotch saying, " Saw ye ever haws on a clippit hedge ? " and most 

 certainly one rarely sees fruit on the thousands of almost solid pyramid 

 apple and pear trees which are to be seen in British gardens, almost 

 as handsome as the Continental bay trees, and quite as useful to form 

 nesting shelters for blackbirds. 



Summer pinching as described is proper for all kinds of fruit trees 

 which form fruiting spurs — apples, pears, plums, and cherries with the 

 exception of the Morello class — and also for cordon and trained goose- 

 berries and red and white currants, whilst peaches, nectarines, apricots, 

 and Morello cherries fruit on the young wood, and the pinching of these 

 is confined to stopping hard those shoots which will not be required for 

 laying in, or any which threaten to upset the balance of the tree by too 

 vigorous growth. If pinching be practised, the knife will only be required 

 to cut out the wocd which has carried a crop of fruit, and gumming will 

 be much less seen than where the knife is used more freely. This is most 

 marked in the case of young trees ; it was formerly the custom of nursery- 

 men to grow their one-year trees of these fruits, which are termed maidens, 

 in a natural manner, and they made upright bushes three or four feet in 

 height, which when required for training were cut back the following 

 season to some 12 or 15 inches from the soil in order to make them 

 branch out from the lower buds. This severe pruning often caused 

 gumming, and to avoid this we now pinch out the lead of the trees 

 which are wanted for training, and so cause the buds to break the first 

 season ; the resulting shoots are tied out, and the foundation of a trained 

 tree is secured the first season, which is a gain ; but the great point is that 

 gumming is almost unknown upon trees treated in this manner. 



Now as to the form of tree which should be summer-pinched : one 

 naturally turns first to the single cordon as an example of the tree which 

 must be so treated ; then we take all wall and espalier trees of those fruits 

 which bear on spurs, and we say that the side branches of horizontally 

 trained trees are only cordons growing laterally from the main stem ; 

 double cordons, palmettes, and palmette verries are of course only 

 multiplications of the single cordon ; and, lastly, true pyramids are only 

 single cordons springing from the central axis of the main stem. Such 

 pyramids one rarely sees in this country, where skilled pruners are scarce 

 and their labour dear ; but in Belgium, where I learned my pruning, every 

 decent fruit garden can show grand specimens of this style of pruning, 

 especially of pears, trees of many years' standing, and carrying crops of grand 

 fruit to old age. In many gardens in Britain one finds apple trees trained 

 in basin-shape and all the branches treated as cordons, which carry fine 

 exhibition fruit ; and in Worcestershire there are hundreds of acres so 

 pruned ; but as the trees get older and carry heavy crops they are only 

 pruned once a year. 



The great majority of growers for market do very little pruning upon 

 either standard or bush fruit trees after the first three or four years, 

 beyond cutting out any dead or crossing branches, but allow the trees 

 to follow their own inclinations. 



