1875. ] 
FRUIT-TREE TRAINING. 
17 
grow in a small bunch at the end of a scape as long as the leaves. It is a very 
interesting member of the group to which it belongs, and will be appreciated by 
those who delight in curious leaf-markings.—T. Moore. 
FRUIT-TREE TRAINING. 
^Notwithstanding all the ingenuity of those who have of late years 
made advancement in hardy fruit-culture, and adopted new systems of 
Training trees, they have not been successful in leading cultivators in 
general into the same line of practice, nor have they yet been the means 
of creating any general enthusiasm among the majority of cultivators of hardy 
fruits. It is indeed only in few cases that the word “ cultivator ” can be applied 
to the growers of hardy fruit. 
If there is any branch of horticulture that has fallen into the shade, or 
made a retrograde movement, it is Fruit-tree Training. The progress which the 
bedding system has made, and the attention which it has received, must bear 
the blame of banishing much of high-class gardening, such as specimen-plant 
growing, improvement of landscapes, &c., from our midst; and u bedding ” may 
also be blamed for the secondary attention which is now accorded to fruit trees 
on walls. This I cannot believe is as it ought to be, but the facts remain that one 
may travel over all the gardens in a county and not meet with a dozen thoroughly 
well-trained trees, and we may search almost in vain to find a young gardener 
who either knows or cares anything about training. 
One of the most prevalent evils to be met with is crowding the shoots thickly 
over the wall, leaving no room for the sun’s rays to exert their power in maturing 
buds or perfecting the quality of the fruit. It is often supposed by the inex¬ 
perienced, that the more wood and buds a tree has, the more plentiful will be 
the fruit, but there cannot be a greater fallacy. 
The system, or rather want of system, of sticking in a shoot to the wall where 
room can be found for it, only leads to confusion. A main stem should be taken up 
for a few feet, and enough shoots taken from it to furnish the whole of the space 
allotted for the tree. These shoots should not be closer together at their extreme 
points than 12 in. or 15 in. Plums, Apricots, and Peaches need not be any closer 
together than Pears, as shoots can be taken from the main rods to fill up as much 
of the wall as may be necessary. If the spur system is preferred for stone fruits, 
the practice is as easily carried out as with pears, and this saves much labour in the 
way of driving and drawing nails. The branches and side-shoots from them may 
be tied to the same nails, avoiding altogether the use of shreds—which are at 
best a somewhat barbarous necessary in a garden; and the destruction of the 
walls by continually drawing nails is most objectionable. The harbour thus 
formed for vermin is also a great source of annoyance. 
In the case of Peaches, Morello Cherries, or any trees where much young wood 
is annually cut out, each old shoot can be replaced with a growth from the 
lowest bud, and when the old one is discarded, the young one may be tied to the 
o 
