COBBETT S NOTIONS OF rilUNING. 
45.1 
young, when you can save the one inclined 
to grow best, and destroy the intruder. But 
when we see, in the present day, plantations 
of fruit-trees growing some one way and some 
another, bending their heads towards the 
ground for want of a stake to hold the stem 
upright till it has attained strength enough 
to hold itself, we need not wonder that the 
essential parts of management are neglected 
in the pruning. Nor is this carelessness even 
of the trunk of the tree new ; scarcely an old 
market-garden but exhibits the effect of this 
in confirmed old trees, lolloping about in all 
directions, bending to the ground on one side 
or other, and being a complete nuisance to the 
labourers who have to work round them, and 
occupying half as much more ground as would 
be necessary for an upright stem. 
5. " All suckers to be cut close to the 
ground." 
We should carry things a little further. 
Cut suckers close to the ground, and they 
spring up every year stronger or more nu- 
merous, till there is a little forest of under- 
wood to be got rid of periodically. Whenever 
a sucker appears, dig down to the root it 
springs from, and cut it back as close as you 
can to its own tree; you will see no more of 
that sucker or any of its progeny ; but if 
you only cut it off close to the ground, half a 
dozen will come from the same root, and you 
may keep on doing the work annually, as long 
as you or the tree live. If it were convenient, 
the root from which a sucker springs should 
be cut off close to the old tree ; but as this 
cannot be always done, we must go as far as 
we can. Suckers are very apt to grow more 
vigorously than the old trees, and they very 
naturally distress the old trees, when they 
are allowed to get the upper hand. 
6. " Prune the remainder of the tree by cut- 
ting last year's wood down to the last bud upon 
it, or at most, leaving not more than two buds." 
This is pernicious advice — a general rule, 
only applicable to particular things. What 
predicament would a gardener be in who cut 
away all last year's wood of trees that only 
bear on the last year's wood ? We can hardly 
think Mr. Cobbett had given such advice. If 
fruit-trees were like cabbage-roses, and bore 
their fruit on the new wood only, there might 
be some plea for pruning back to one or two 
eyes ; but there are so many exceptions to 
such habit, that it would be actually destroying 
the crops year after year to cut away the last 
year's wood. Take the peach, nectarine, 
apricot, and many other trees, that not only 
bear exclusively on the last year's wood, but 
always towards the extremities ; that is to say, 
a shoot of two feet in length would bear only 
on the fifteen or eighteen inches farthest from 
the limb it sprung from : cut these shoots 
back every year to two eyes, and away go all 
the fruit buds. This leads us to a decided 
objection to any general rules for pruning; the 
pruning must be adapted to the tree, its habit 
of growing and bearing. The spur system — 
for it amounts to this — may be very well for 
some things. Pears and apples may do very 
well, currants and gooseberries may do very 
Well, but, strictly speaking, each family wants 
in detail something more than a sweeping 
plan ; they cannot be served all alike with 
success. The first five rules may be generally 
applied ; they are good in all cases ; but the 
sixth is a blunder, and to counteract the effect 
of it was the principal object of our present 
interference. The pruning of all standard 
fruit trees must be different to that of wall 
trees or espaliers ; but no system that carries 
away the fruit buds can be right. We have, 
under the different kinds of fruit trees, given 
instructions for the pruning, and it will be 
seen from these that what is excellent for one 
family is destruction to another. We advise, 
therefore, the application of the first five rules, 
as unerring, to whatever fruit-tree they may 
be applied ; but we repudiate the sixth as a 
general rule altogether, and recommend the 
study of each subject, before we app!y any- 
further detail as to pruning. 
It may be said that the person who quotes 
Cobbett in the Midland Florist applies his 
rules only to gooseberries and currants. This 
is not clear at first sight, because the article 
is headed, " Pruning Fruit-trees." But if 
Mr. Cobbett's rules apply to gooseberry-trees 
and currant - trees only, he only half in- 
structs, because he does not say when we are 
to begin this pruning. If he means from the 
first, he is decidedly wrong : where are Ave 
to find main branches if the last year's wood 
is to be cut away always ? A currant or 
gooseberry-tree makes two or three shoots 
the first year, say eighteen inches long ; well, 
we are to cut last year's wood back to one or 
two eyes ; that is to say, two inches at the 
most. The next year we have more branches 
and the same growth, but we are only to ad- 
vance in size two inches a-year. It is clear, 
then, that such instructions are vague. The 
currant and gooseberry, if we allow that they 
alone are intended, should be trained into a 
proper shape before any of the branches 
should be shortened. It is clear that the 
struck cutting is the only limb; when planted 
out first, this should be cut down within three 
or four eyes of the ground, and as these four 
eyes will only give four shoots, which are not 
enough to form a tree, they may be cut down 
to two eyes each, that we may have eight 
branches. These may form a tree, and, if so, 
all the side shoots may be cut off yearly to 
one or two eyes, because there is plenty of 
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