THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 
* 
summer. This is very desirable, as you thus get two sets of shoots for one, in the same space of time, 
an object of much importance in furnishing a wall. A repetition of this course of treatment 'will 
furnish the space allotted, whether of wall or espalier rail. 
p> Fig. 4 represents a two year old shoot, with naturally formed blossom 
buds. The fruit of the Pear 
and Apple is produced upon 
short studs or spurs, which 
proceed laterally and termi- 
nally from the main branches. 
To have the branches regu- 
larly covered with fruit-spurs 
must, therefore, be the object 
of the pruner. In the second 
year after the shoots which 
are to be the bearing branches 
are formed, the buds along 
them will produce shoots 
which may be treated in two 
or three different manners, 
with the same object in view. 
'1 he old practice was to allow 
them to grow a considerable 
length, and then prune them 
back almost to their base, but from the crowded confusion in which such 
wood had grown, the leaves could only imperfectly perform their functions, 
and instead of organizing fruit-buds for another year, another crop of 
barren shoots was generally produced. It is now found more judicious to 
stop them when they have 
attained the length of two 
or three inches, the result 
of this is, that embryo fruit- 
buds are formed at the base 
of each shoot so treated. 
We have also successfully 
practised the following 
mode, namely, — when the 
shoots have grown to nine 
inches or a foot in length 
we break them through, 
leaving them suspended by 
a portion of the bark. The 
light that is admitted to 
the unmutilatcd base-leaves 
increases their elaborativc 
power, and the sap is par- 
tially repulsed at the frac- 
ture, to be expended in 
Fiij. \. forming embryo fruit-buds, 
two or three of which will be found at the base of each 
shoot in the autumn (see Fig. 5). Careful root-prun- 
ing will always control vigour and tend to induce 
fruitfulness. A watchful eye must be kept to have 
the fruitful spurs short and close to the wall, without 
which caution they will elongate and look unsightly, 
exposing the blossoms to greater risk of injury from 
frost, by removing them from the shelter of the wall. In Fig. 6, a represents a spur from which a 
fruit was produced last year. At its base will be seen an embryo leaf-bud. ii, to which it must be cut 
back; this will, in the ensuing season, become a blossom-bud: c, which will produce fruit in the third 
m^fc72 
h 
