JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
566 
[ December 21, 1882. 
the following timely and suggestive letter from “Wiltshire 
Rector:”— 
“ Having lost my whole gathering of these Pears last year, owing 
to my not looking at them until after Christmas, as they are not 
due until February, I thought I would at any rate be in time this 
year, and so examined them in the middle of November, when I 
was surprised to find that some were almost ripe. I brought them 
at once out of the cold fruit room into a cupboard in a room where 
there was a fire, as I felt sure they did not need any greater heat 
such as I apply each year to Bergamotte Esperen. My surmise 
was right. From that time (November lGth) until now I have been 
eating them daily, none lost from over-ripeness, but coming to 
table in rotation, and I never tasted this Pear of finer flavour, I 
quite endorse Mr. Smee’s opinion that 1 Josephine de Malines is, of 
late Pears, unrivalled in juiciness and flavour.’ But I add this 
note of caution—Watch your Pears, or you may lose them alto¬ 
gether. If you trust solely to even the best of catalogues or 
manuals that tell you this Pear is in season from February to 
May, still there may come years when their period of ripeness is 
November to late in December. I would ask, Have other fruit¬ 
growers noticed this change of season, and what can be the reason 
why a Pear should be ripe three months before its time in spite of 
its being kept, as I have said, in a cold fruit room ?” 
[We suspect it will be difficult to explain the matter, but shall 
be glad if a solution is forthcoming. There is, however, this satis¬ 
faction—the fruit is excellent at whatever time it ripens, and few 
persons can err by growing Josephine de Malines.] 
WINTER v. SUMMER PRUNING. 
I MUST confess to having been”educated in a somewhat anti¬ 
quated school of gardening, especially as regards pruning. The 
custom was to prune hard in winter with a view of imparting 
vigour to the trees, and particularly to the fruit buds or the spurs ; 
whilst those trees that produced fruit on last year’s wood, such as 
Peaches and Nectarines, where cut in very sharply, out of a 
length of 2 feet or more barely a third of it was left after pruning 
for producing fruit or to insure growth for future crops. Sum¬ 
mer-pruning was little practised. True, an attempt was made 
to shorten the forerights some time after midsummer, and the 
disbudding of Peach trees was of course attended to, yet the chief 
of the pruning had to be done in winter. The trees seemed to 
like it in so far as their power for making wood were concerned, 
giving a crop of shoots in summer quite equal to that removed at 
the previous winter pruning, and the trees had (as “ John Bull ” 
so forcibly brought before your readers in a recent volume) a 
grand appearance—fine trees covering I know not how many 
yards of wall, and in good seasons bushels of fine fruits were 
looked for as a certainty. “ This, of course, was long before the 
Quince and Paradise stocks had come into vogue,” some may say ; 
but it was not, for there were then those, but not in such numbers 
as we find them at the present time, and yet there were dwarfs, 
Apples on Crab stocks bearing as freely as giants in the adjoining 
orchards ; therefore we may dismiss the supposition that gardeners 
some few years back knew little of the restrictive as opposed to 
the extension system. In their bushes, espalier, and wall trees 
they practised the former, and it is doubtful whether the old 
practitioners were not right in allowing a fair amount of summer 
growth. An excess of summer growth deprives the fruit and 
wood for future bearing of the light and air essential to their 
development, as root-action is thereby stimulated and the supply 
of nutriment is out of proportion to the demands ; but a moderate 
summer growth maintains a healthy reciprocal action between 
the roots and head—the fruit swells freely, and the bloom buds 
are thoroughly developed. Trees on the restrictive system are, in 
the case of vigorous examples, in no better plight than those 
allowed to make an excess of summer growth, as no amount of 
pinching will transform the unduly vigorous growths into fruit 
buds. Boot-pruning may, close pinching will never do so. A 
moderate extent of new growth annually appears necessary for 
maintaining the trees in health and fertility, and it does not 
matter whether the superfluity be removed during growth or when 
the trees are at rest. 
But I shall be asked if there is really no difference between 
winter pruning and summer pruning. My answer must be, 
Decidedly none. An over-luxuriant tree is not to be brought from 
a barren to a fruitful state by either winter or summer pruning. 
A vigorous tree pruned hard in winter is a mass of strong spray in 
summer, and on one closely summer-pruned clusters of growth 
break again quickly after stopping. The remedy in both cases 
is identical and threefold. First, extension, so as to bring the 
head into action with the roots; secondly, root-pruning, so as 
to limit the supply of nutrition proportionate to the head ; and 
thirdly, regraftiDg. All of these are effectual in restoring 
unfruitful trees, especially the last—a practice by no means so 
common now as it was in old times, when if any tree had out¬ 
grown its space, and for want of room giving nothing but 
unfruitful growth, it was headed down and regrafted. How often 
do we see trees which require extension to render them fruitful 
allowed to remain year after year without anything being done 
to rectify the evil, whereas regrafting would restore them to 
fruitfulness in nearly as little time as root-pruning, and assuredly 
with greater certainty, no trees producing such fine fruit as that 
upon the wood of the first years of fertility. 
Winter pruning and summer pruning are identical. Both mean 
the removal of parts not necessary to the symmetry of the trees, 
and as regards fruitful trees serve no other purpose whatever, as 
is evidenced by trees left to assume their natural form in orchards. 
If there is any advantage to the crops of fruit it must be obtained 
more from the winter than the summer pruning. The value of 
foliage in enhancing the size and quality of fruit is exemplified in 
trees both on the dwarfing and free stock which have attained an 
age that very little if any growth is made beyond that necessary 
for the formation of spurs or fruit buds. This may not be the 
result of age naturally, but by the food supply not being in excess 
of the requirements of the tree for fruit-production, for the less 
are the supplies of food the greater will be the effort on the part 
of the tree to fruit. These trees are yet the most disappointing of 
all. The blossom is very profuse and beautiful, but not unfre- 
quently they do not set a single blossom. Why 1 The balance 
between the head and roots is so even that support is not forth¬ 
coming equal to the demands of the blossom, simply because there 
is no leaf or wood-bud growth to excite the action of the roots or 
to draw up sap for the expanded blossoms ; or it may be that the 
blossoms are imperfectly developed in embryo in the previous 
autumn, and this, too, from a deficiency of alimentary matter. 
If there is a good set of fruit many drop in stoning, and 
the spurs thereby liberated give the tree strength enough to per¬ 
fect the fruit remaining and form fruit buds for next year ; but 
if all the fruit remain, the tree is so weakened by the year’s 
crop that very few, if indeed any, of the spurs develope into fruit 
buds, whilst the fruit, unless thinning has been resorted to un¬ 
grudgingly, though great in numbers is inferior in both size and 
quality. 
The remedy in their case is to prune to induce the production 
of fresh wood—increased supplies of nutrition by lessening the 
number to receive it—through well thinning out the clustered 
spurs ; which, by affording more sap than can be appropriated by 
the fruit-bearing parts, will cause wood growths to be made, alike 
benefiting the present and future crops. Heading-down, either 
for re-working or training up fresh growth, will be attended by 
similarly favourable results. The great aim of pruning is to 
preserve the symmetry of the trees and make them adaptable to 
certain positions, but to think that pruning ever was instrumental 
in causing barren trees to become fruitful is a mistake. 
Winter pruning may consist in thinning out the spurs and 
cutting back any that have grown so as to be at a distance from 
the base, which will admit more air and allow space for fresh 
growth, increased vigour, and finer fruits. In the case of trees 
neither too strong nor too weakly it will not be needful to cut 
back the summer shoots, stopped or otherwise, and not terminated 
by a fruit bud or a spur for forming one to a bud at its base. To 
prune trees in winter that make too much wood, and in con¬ 
sequence are unfruitful, is erroneous. Extension is needed, not 
curtailment, the head being left intact if space permit, and the 
roots pruned instead of the branches. How frequently do we see 
pyramid and bush trees cut into fashion and out of fruiting, which 
is left to themselves would convert the previous year’s growth 
into fruitful buds, and give a heavy crop the following year. 
Once get a tree into bearing, and it will give little use for the 
knife ; thinning, shortening back, and the removal of superfluities 
or irregularities will be all that is necessary, performing this in 
winter if the trees need vigour, in summer if too vigorous. 
This brings me to the point I started from. Everybody has, 
or ought to have, a garden, and what garden is without its Goose¬ 
berries ? I had a quarter of Gooseberries, beautiful bushes, 
making splendid shoots every year, which were spurred-in every 
winter, and they bore splendid crops of grand leaves, the shoots 
armed with glorious spines. The scantiness of crop was attributed 
to too rich soil, but the manure was given as usual, and the only 
thing laid aside was the knife ; not a shoot was shortened nor one 
thinned out. The result was nearly every bud produced one or 
more berries, and by the time they were fit for tarts it caused 
some anxiety as to how the fruit was to be gathered, the shoots 
were so close and the spines so menacing. The heads were the 
