SUMMER PRUNING AND TRAINING OF FRUIT-TREES. H3 



particularly those growing against walls ; but however clever they 

 were in their training, the fruit was often only conspicuous by its 

 absence. It has indeed been said that the time and attention 

 these old practitioners bestowed upon their trees was more for 

 the sake of extreme neatness of outline than for the production 

 of fruit, as the fruit obtained was, considering the time bestowed 

 upon the training, practically nil. Their bush and pyramid 

 trees gave one the idea of topiary work, so shorn were they of 

 extending growth throughout the season. 



Now although I have a great partiality for a well-trained 

 tree, yet I should not by any means commend a system or a tree 

 which did not in due season produce fruit commensurate with 

 the time and attention bestowed upon it. But, on the other 

 hand, I say that those who denounce judicious training as being 

 quite unnecessary are not advancing the best methods of manipu- 

 lating fruit-trees. With trees growing against walls, for example, 

 the better they are trained, the easier they are to manage after- 

 wards, and the little extra attention bestowed upon them in their 

 earlier stages is well repaid when they are once established, as 

 a man can see at a single glance which shoots want removing 

 and which not, and so he will not have to waste his time in 

 pondering over the work, as he almost necessarily must do with 

 ill-trained trees. Leaving out of sight for a moment the argu- 

 ment that well-trained trees are beautiful objects in any garden, 

 I maintain that fruitfulness may be made to run on parallel lines 

 with training, although in one sense, of course, the form the tree 

 is to take is only of secondary importance, as it is the quantity 

 and quality of the fruit produced, by which its value will be 

 gauged. 



The dwarfing stocks now largely in vogue have helped to 

 revolutionise fruit-growing, or rather the pruning that is required, 

 for with the advent of these stocks, which supplied a want long 

 felt, trees suitable for the smallest gardens or for special positions 

 could be grown of a small restricted size, and be also made fruit- 

 ful without much pinching or pruning being necessary to pro- 

 duce them. It was the attempt to rigidly restrict the old trees 

 grafted or budded on what is known as the free stock, which led 

 to the abuse of summer pinching, as any attempt to dwarf trees 

 on these free stocks by summer pinching or pruning only led to 

 disastrous results ; the continual pinching or pruning only led to 



