©M." Knight's New Wothed of Training Fruit Trees.

A

JOURNAL

OF

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY,

AND

THE ARTS.

MAY, 1809.

ARTICLE I.

On a new Method of training Fruit Trees. By THOMAS
ANDREW KNIGHT, F. R. S. &c*.

FROM the result of experiments I have made to ascer- Usual forms of

defective.

tain the influence of gravitation on the descending sap of training trees
trees, and the cause of the descent of the radicle, and as-
cent of the expanding plumule of germinating seeds†, I
have been induced to believe, that none of the forms, in
which fruit trees are generally trained, are those best calcu-
lated to promote an equal distribution of the circulating
fluids; by which alone permanent health and vigour, and
power to afford a succession of abundant crops, can be
given. I have therefore been led to try a method of train- A different
ing, which is, I believe, different from any that has been manner tried
with success,
practised; and as the success of this method has fully an-

Trans. of the Horticultural Society, p. 79.

+ Phil. Trans. for 1806 and 1807; or Journal, Vol. XIV, p. 409, and XIX, 241.

VOL. XXIII. No. 101,-May, 1809.

B

swered

swered every expectation I had formed, I have thought a concise account of it might not be unacceptable to the Horticultural Society. I confine my account to the peach tree, though, with a little variation, the method of training and pruning, that I recommend, is applicable, even with superior advantages, to the cherry, plum, and pear tree; and Form of train- I must observe, that when trees are by any means deprived ing trees when of the motion, which their branches naturally receive from are deprived of winds, the forms in which they are trained operate more motion, impowerfully on their permanent health and vigour, than is portant. generally imagined.

their branches

My peach trees, which were plants of one year old only, were headed down; as usual, early in the spring, and two shoots only were trained from each stem in opposite directions, and in an elevation of about 5 degrees; and when the two shoots did not grow with equal luxuriance, I depressed the strongest, or gave a greater elevation to the weakest, by which means both were made to acquire and to preserve an equal degree of vigour. These shoots, receiving the whole sap of the plants, grew with much luxuriance, and in the course of the summer each attained about the length of four feet. Many lateral shoots were of course emitted from the young luxuriant branches; but these were pinched off at the first or second leaf, and were in the succeeding winter wholly destroyed; when the plants, after being pruned, appeared as represented in Pl. I, Fig. 1. This form, I shall here observe, might with much advantage be given to trees while in the nursery; and perhaps it is the only form, which can be given without subsequent injury to the tree: it is also a form that can be given with very little trouble or expense to the nurseryman.

In the succeeding season as many branches were suffered to spring from each plant as could be trained conveniently, without shading each other; and by selecting the strongest and earliest buds towards the points of the year old branches, and the weakest and latest near their bases, I was enabled to give to each annual shoot nearly an equal degree of vigour; and the plants appeared in the autumn of the second year nearly as represented in Fig. 2. The experienced gardener will here observe, that I exposed a greater surface of leaf

to the light, without placing any of the leaves so as to shade others, than can probably be done in any other mode of training; and in consequence of this arrangement, the growth of the trees was so great, that at two years old some of them were fifteen feet wide; and the young wood in every part acquired the most perfect maturity. In the winter, the shoots of the last season were alternately shortened, and left their whole length, and they were then prepared to afford a most abundant and regular blossom in the succeeding spring.

In the autumn of the third year the trees were nearly as Third year. represented in Fig. 3, the central part of each being formed of very fine bearing wood; and the size and general health of the trees afford evidence of a more regular distribution of the sap, than I have witnessed in any other mode of training.

winter pruning should be as

ed.

In the preceding method of treating peach trees very little Necessity of use was made of the knife during winter: and I must remark, that the necessity of winter pruning should generally much as pos be avoided as much as possible; for by laying in a much sible preventlarger quantity of wood in the summer and autumn than can be wanted in the succeeding year, the gardener gains no other advantage, than that of having a "great choice of fine bearing wood to fill his walls," and I do not see any advantage in his having much more than he wants; on the contrary, the health of the tree always suffers by too much use of the knife through successive seasons.

To enter into the detail of pruning, in the manner in Remarks on which I think it might be done with most advantage, would pruning of necessity lead me much beyond the intended limits of my peach-trees. present communication; but I shall take this opportunity of offering a few observations on the proper treatment of luxuriant shoots of the peach tree, the origin and office of which, as well as the right mode of pruning them, are not at all understood either by the writers on gardening of this country, or the Continent.

I have shown in the Phil. Trans. for 1805*, that the albur- The alburnum num, or sap wood of oak trees loses a considerable part of a reservoir of its weight during the period in which its leaves are formed sap in winter.

* See Journal, Vol. XII, p. 233.