METHODS OF TRAINING FRUIT-TREES. 85 
them to increased action in the following year ; a circumstance rather 
to be avoided than encouraged in a fruit tree. 
To obtain the desired form and induce fruitfulness, the vigour of 
the tree must be checked, by preventing all extravagant growth in the 
summer ; and with this view the trees must be frequently inspected 
during the months of April, May, and June, in order to rub off every 
bud threatening to come forth in a wrong place. And of those suffered 
to remain to form spurs, they should be stopped as soon as they have 
gained a length of six or seven inches. The leading shoots at the 
point of the branches are never stopped till they have gained their 
utmost limit, or till they interfere with other trees. 
This dismemberment, performed annually, soon gets the whole 
system into a stunted or stationaiy state, and until this state of an 
espalier be acquired, it is never sufficiently fruitful. 
As trees trained as espaliers are those called spur-bearers, and which 
spurs bear the flowers, they are particularly cared for in pruning ; 
always preserving those nearest the place whence they issue, so as to 
keep them snugly in line, and not dangling too far from the branches. 
The senior Mr. Harrison has given excellent directions on this branch 
of pruning fruit trees, and well worth the consideration of all engaged 
in the business. 
Espaliers are planted at various distances, according to their natural 
volume ; but as the quality of the soil always determines the growth, 
it is not easy to fix a rule for inter-distances. In a kindly loam of 
middling quality and of moderate depth, the distances may vary from 
fifteen to thirty feet ; the nearer distances for plums and apples, 
the greater for pears and some sorts of cherries. Some trainers inter¬ 
mix the branches of proximate trees; in which case they may be 
planted at first, nearer together. But it is a good plan to have super¬ 
numeraries ; the trouble of removing a tree from between two over¬ 
bearing, or valuable neighbours, is not great, and besides it gives 
opportunity for selecting those most worthy the station. 
Whether trees be trained in the above described manner, or in any 
other way upon a rank of stakes, it is, it must be confessed, unnatural; 
and many have thought, particularly among the French gardeners, 
that to see each tree insulated has a better effect on the eye of the 
spectator, as well as more natural for the trees to receive atmospheric 
influences on every side. 
(To be continued .) 
