the ground, the additional warmth it receives adds materially to its ripening in perfection.

Espaliers.

Several very valuable sorts of Pears may be successfully cultivated in Espaliers, which would not succeed on the tall and exposed orchard standard, and such as do not necessarily require a wall. The Quenouille training, which has been explained under the head of Propagation, is admirably adapted for small gardens, and for ripening many of our finest autumnal fruit; but the Espalier possesses some advantages over that, being less exposed to high winds, and affording greater security to heavy fruit.

Pears intended for Espaliers, as well as for Quenouille training, should be propagated upon the Quince stock; and grafted plants, as I have observed before, are preferable to those which have been raised from buds. Horizontal training, as recommended for Apples, is that which is best adapted for the Pear, and the method laid down for forming the tree the same: the horizontal branches may also be trained at nine or ten inches apart, unless it be for those sorts whose fruit are very large; these will be better if they are allowed a foot.

In July, the superfluous young shoots should be shortened to two inches, and the extreme ones continued at their full length. By the beginning or middle of September, most of the spurs, which had been cut back at the former pruning, will have thrown out another shoot from the extreme bud of each; such, therefore, should now be cut back below this shoot, which will then leave the spur one inch instead of two. Should these artificial spurs be nearer to each other than three inches, they should be thinned out, which will finish the pruning for the summer season.

In the winter pruning, these must be looked over

again, and wherever there are any natural spurs, the artificial ones must be cut out close, so as to give them room; and such of the older ones which have produced fruit reduced in length, by cutting off that part which produced the fruit to the next bud: this will keep the spurs close, and render them productive.

Trained Pears, both as espaliers and against walls, through negligence and mismanagement, always abound with long naked spurs, not one in twenty of which produces fruit; and on those which do, it is small, ill-shaped, and worthless. When trees are found in this state, those spurs must be reduced by degrees, cutting some clean out where they have stood too close together, and shortening others. On the neck part of some of these long spurs, there will be frequently one or two good buds to be found; if so, the spurs must be cut back to those buds; and where there are none, they should be shortened to within one or two inches of the main branch. In the course of the following summer there will, in all probability, be buds formed at their base, where the old spurs should at the winter pruning be finally removed.

In the course of two or three years, by following up this method, the trees in most cases may be reduced into a fruit-bearing state; if, however, they have been too long and too much neglected to be reduced in this manner, they must be headed down.

Pears against Walls.

The management of this description of wall trees scarcely differs from that of the espalier: they should be formed in the same manner, by having an upright stem furnishing horizontal branches on each side, and which require both in the winter and summer a similar

treatment.

The spurs on wall trees can only be allowed from the

sides and front of the branches, as those produced from the back or near to it would, in the progress of their growth, not only derange in some measure the straight direction of the. branch, but receive material injury by their pressure against the wall; such, therefore, should at all times be removed on their appearance, leaving those only which are either situated on the front, or so far from the wall as not to be injured by it, at any future stage of their growth.

The spurs of Pears, indeed, require the principal part of the gardener's attention in the management of the tree, for on these depend the bulk and value of the crop: short spurs, at a moderately wide distance, produce fine fruit, whilst those on long ones in a crowded state are proportionately inferior; on the contrary, very vigorous sound spurs, at wide distances, produce fruit of the very largest size, and of the greatest excellence. This I have before noticed, when describing the Chaumontel Pear, as grown by the Jersey gardeners.

Pear trees which have been too long neglected to be recovered by the reduction of their spurs, should be headed down in the following manner:

In February or the beginning of March, with a thin fine-toothed saw, cut every branch back to within nine inches of the main stem from which it issued, making the cut in a sloping direction, and as little exposed to view in front as possible, smoothing it afterwards with a sharp knife, and particularly the bark round the edge, so that its lacerated parts may be effectually removed; at the same time every spur, whether good or bad, upon the remaining part of the tree should be cut off close and smooth, but not so close as to touch the ring of bark at its base, from beneath which the young shoots will make their appearance.

After this operation is finished, the wounds should be covered with a small portion of well-beaten grafting

clay, reduced into a paste with water, or with Mr. Forsyth's composition*, which is very excellent, and at the same time washing over with a brush both the head and the stem with the same composition in a diluted state.

When the young shoots make their appearance, they must be allowed to grow till they are long enough to be nailed to the wall, when two of the most regular and best placed from each branch cut down must be trained, and the others removed, cutting them off close and smooth.

If the branches headed down in the spring had been at regular and proper distances from each other, two shoots from each will be double the number subsequently required. It is, however, necessary this number should be trained the first year, as they will grow as strong and extend quite as far as if half the number only had been retained; and it will give an opportunity of selecting the best shoot of the two in the winter pruning; and in case of any accident happening to one, the other will supply its place, so that a full number of branches will thus be secured to furnish every part of the tree.

This being accomplished, the branches must be continued at their full length, as before directed, and the superfluous shoots and spurs treated accordingly.

* The preparation and application of this composition will be

given at the end of this work.