118 
TRAINING. 
j^CHAP. v. 
never ripens, but withers prematurely, and 
falls off. Pruning, at the best, is a violent 
remedy ; and, like all other violent remedies, 
if carried further than is absolutely necessary, 
it generally ends by destroying. 
Training is intimately connected with 
pruning, and like it should always be used 
with caution. A trained tree is a most 
unnatural object; and whatever care may be 
taken of it, there can be no doubt that train¬ 
ing shortens its life by many years. The 
principal object of training is to produce 
from a certain number of branches a greater 
quantity of fruit or flowers than would grow 
on them if the plant were left in a natural 
state; and this is effected by spreading and 
bending the branches, so as to form numerous 
depositions of the returning sap, aided, where 
the plant is trained against the wall, by the 
shelter and reflected heat which the wall 
affords. Thus the points to be attended to 
by the gardener in training are the covering 
of the wall, so that no part of it may be lost; 
the bending of the branches backwards and 
forwards, so that they may form numerous 
deposits of the returning sap; and the full 
