18 
ON PRUNING AND TRAINING PLANTS TO FORM STANDARDS. 
be encouraged at all except near the top of the stem. For the first year or two, 
they will have to be stopped several times while growing, in order to make them 
protrude other branches. 
As soon as a tolerably regular and symmetrical head is formed, the pruning 
should be practised with less frequency and rigidity. Indeed, it will be rather 
thinning than terminal pruning which will then be requisite for a while, that the 
branches may immediately proceed to acquire that drooping character, which 
constitutes the chief attraction of a well-grown standard. 
Throughout the progress in the growth of the stem, and the development of 
its head, it will probably need the aid of a stake, either on account of its weakness, 
or from its disposition to grow crooked. In fastening the stem to any stake, 
caution should be exercised in occasionally renewing the bands made use of, or 
they will be likely to cut the stem as it swells. 
Adverting to the preparation of standards by grafting, we may notice that 
this system is pursued as a means of putting a weakly or feeble-rooting kind of 
plant on a more vigorous or better-rooting stock, or for combining several sorts 
on one stock, or for economy, where the plant used as a scion is a scarce and 
valuable one ; or for saving time in rearing it, when the conditions are similar to 
those last mentioned. Where none of these reasons exist, it is better to form the 
standard by pruning ; though it may be observed that the grafting method offers 
peculiar facilities for placing species or varieties which have pendulous shoots on 
the top of the upright stems of allied species. 
Standard stocks for grafting upon can be procured in the manner recommended 
for ordinary standards. In grafting them, the stock should be employed while it 
is quite young ; and if the top of it be only a little larger than the scion, they will 
the more rapidly and firmly unite. The graft can be put on the summit of the 
stock, or several can be inserted in it near the summit. Perhaps it is preferable 
to have only one, save where different varieties are to be introduced ; as one 
terminal graft is more likely to receive, in a direct manner, all the supplies from 
the stock, and to elaborate and develop them into a regular head. 
The scion, as it grows, should be stopped immediately after it has formed three 
or four eyes, that it may at once proceed to organize young laterals, and thus to 
furnish the rudiments of a compact head ; these laterals being also stopped till they 
liave acquired sufficient energy to produce other healthy shoots. Of course, in this, 
as in the former case mentioned, the stopping of the shoots will be determined by 
the nature of the plant ; some kinds of plants requiring a great deal of this 
tendance, and others scarcely any. 
Having now described the process of preparing standard plants, it only remains 
to point out some of the objects on which the practice may be carried out with 
advantage and success. Shrubby plants will, of necessity, be the objects to which 
it must be chiefly confined ; and of such, the kinds with flexile branches seem to 
us best adapted for the purpose. The highest beauty of a standard is, in our view. 
