THE AMATEURS KITCHEN GARDEN. 
265 
with, and the novice may dismiss from his mind the subject 
of pruning and take a plain resolve never to prune at all. 
This declaration must be taken cum gra.no, because a cross 
branch may sometimes be cut away with advantage, and it 
may be desirable sometimes to remove dead wood and to 
shorten the shoots of young trees that are somewhat spare in 
their furniture. But it is a fact that it is not necessary to 
systematically prune any fruit tree or any fruit bush of any 
kind whatever. When the question is asked therefore, how 
shall I prune this or that ? our reply is, you need not prune • 
at all, neither an apple tree, nor a pear tree, nor a plum tree, 
nor a currant nor a gooseberry bush. You need not even prune 
or support the raspberry, for when left alone the stools throw 
up no more rods than are needed, and they are perfectly self- 
supporting, and they bear such prodigious quantities of fruit 
that a few years experience of the non-pruning system will 
convince any one that systematic pruning is systematic folly. 
These remarks do not of course apply to trees on walls or 
espaliers. They are in an artificial form, and must be kept 
to that form by judicious pruning. But even these are 
usually pruned too much, and their vigour is proportionately 
reduced, while as to the frequent cutting and pinching of 
pyramid and bush trees, that current works on fruit culture 
recommend, it is for the most part waste of time and injurious 
to the trees that are the subjects of it. 
The reader will not need to be told that the question of 
pruning has two sides, and the practice lias the sanction of 
ages in its favour. Having studied all the modes of pruning, 
and being familiar with many of the best fruit gardens in 
which pruning is practised with rare dexterity and praise- 
worthy perseverance, the writer of this little book does not 
hesitate to advise the man who desires to obtain ample sup- 
plies of useful fruits in the simplest and surest manner, to 
give up pruning altogether and let nature have her way. 
The fruit will come, and perhaps the crowding of the head of 
the tree which the books tell you to prevent by free use of the 
knife, may prove by the shelter the crowded growth affords, 
the very reason that your unpruned trees are fruitful, when 
others in the district that are “perfectly” pruned produce 
nothing at all. When you hear of an apple tree producing 
forty bushels of apples, you may be sure the owner has not 
devoted much time to the pruning of it. In one sense a tree 
