DWARF STANDARD PEAR-TREES. 
509 
tne torm ot shoots, but put out a leaf or two, 
and extend a little from the main branch, 
bearing, by the end of the season, a plump, 
roundish bud at the extremity, as at (&) ; this 
is a blossom bud, and by the end of the next 
year it has borne fruit, and is something like 
what is shown at (c) ; the upper part is gene- 
rally removed in gathering the fruit, leaving 
it something like (d) ; and after the lapse of a 
season, this has become formed into a spur, as 
at (e), with two, three, or more blossom buds, 
which bear fruit the next year. It will be 
obvious that if these are left to themselves, 
they will, every season, become larger, and will 
extend by degrees further from the main 
branch ; but it is some years before this 
becomes inconvenient. If the branches are 
healthy, however, and it is preferred to operate 
on them, rather than to remove them, and 
train young ones in their place, these spurs 
may be cut back to near the main branch, 
when the small incipient buds just visible at 
the base of each spur, in the sketch, will be 
developed, and will go through the same 
regular course as the primary buds. If a few of 
the largest of these spurs are annually removed 
from the branch, it may always be kept with 
a sufficient number to bear a good crop of 
fruit, while the annual removal of a few of the 
most advanced will keep the branch in order, 
as long as it may be thought fit to retain it, or 
it may continue in health. The principal 
branches are to be renovated on the same prin- 
ciple ; one or two being removed annually, or 
when it may be found to be necessary, and a 
healthy young shoot brought into its place. 
Thus it is that trees are kept in perpetual 
vigour, and continually in a state to produce 
crops of fruit. This brief explanation of the 
nature of the growth and bearing of the Pear- 
tree will render what follows the more intelli- 
gible to those who know little of these matters. 
Pyramidal Training. — This mode is a 
good deal practised on the Continent, but not 
so much in this country. It consists in training 
the trees, each to one upright perpendicular 
stem, which is usually in this country allowed 
to rise eight or ten feet in height, but on the 
Continent frequently as much or more than 
twenty feet. The side branches which issue 
from this main stem are kept spurred in, so 
that, after the pruning season, a tree thus 
trained should look like an upright pole 
furnished throughout with spurs, the lower 
ones being, of course, the oldest, and also the 
longest and largest. The mode of bringing a 
young tree into this form will be understood 
by the subjoined figures. 
It is a variety of this mode of training, whicfr 
is called en qiienouille, or the distaff training : 
in this, the side shoots are allowed to grow 
eightecninchesortwo feet from the stem, being 
