3. The sap, tending always to the extremities, causes the terminal shoots to push with more vigor than the laterals.
4. The more the sap is obstructed in its circulation, the more likely it will be to produce fruit-buds.
5. The leaves serve to prepare the sap for the nourishment of the tree, and to aid in the formation of fruit-buds. Therefore, trees deprived of their foliage are liable to perish, and they are injured in proportion to their defoliation.
6. When the buds of any shoot or branch do not develop before the age of two years, they can only be forced into activity by very close pruning; and this will often fail, especially in the peach.
Observe the foregoing, and never cut large limbs from any tree, except in grafting an old tree (and then only graft a part of the top in one year, especially in the pear), and of old, neglected peach-trees, to renew the top, and any careful cultivator can raise an orchard of healthy, beautiful, and profitable trees. There are different forms of training that have gone the rounds of the fruit-books, that are nearly all more fanciful than useful. There are four forms of fan-training, and several of horizontal and conical. The following only are useful:—
Fan-Training.—A tree but one year from the graft, or bud, is planted and headed down to within four buds of the ground, the buds so situated as to throw out two shoots on each side (see fan-training, first stage).
Fan-training, 1st stage. Fan-training, 2d stage.
