A dictionary of modern gardening - University Library

PEA 446 PEA
?on, the tree will be much benefited
from having the upright shoot topped,
as the sap by this check will be forced
into the horizontal branches below,
which are often starved by the prodigious
and in a great measure useless
growth of the centre. All superfluous
shoots are to be pinched off within an
inch or two as they appear, and, as far
as may be, without leaving the branch
absolutely bare, and entirely cut out in
the winter pruning.
" This treatment is to be repeated till
Fig. 125.—(P. 441.)
those trees which have their first pair
of horizontal branches within nineinches
of the ground, arrive within two feet or
eighteen inches of the top of the wall.
These trees are to be considered permanent;
those which have no branch
till they are one foot nine inches high,
are for a temporary purpose only, and
they may have a pair of branches within
four inches of the top of the wall.
" In ten years, we will suppose, on a
twelve feet wall, most of the branches
will reach twelve or thirteen feet from