mid atmosphere produced by watering or syringing, and special care be taken that after such an accession of heat the recession be not sudden. The night temperature may range uniformly about ten degrees below that of the day, the state of the house being sedulously watched, its slightest variations being indicated by a double registering thermometer. Besides a very severe system of summer pruning, almost entirely suppressing growth, there are in fruit forcing various other nice points to be attended to, the detailed minutiæ of which will be found in works specially devoted to this department of fancy culture, and these scanty general indications are all that can be given here. The ripening of the larger fruits will generally be effected in about five months from the first application of heat. TRAINING. "TRAINING" is any process by which the young growth of trees or shrubs is diverted from its natural course, and made to take such directions or assume such forms as the fancy of the cultivator may prescribe. Hence the various kinds of training are designated as "upright," "horizontal," "fanshaped," "weeping," "coiled," or "winding," etc. For illustrations of the two former see Arbor and Trellis Culture of the Grape, p. 349-50. Training the larger fruit-trees upon trellises is, in general, merely a fancy mode of treating dwarf trees like the weeping cone and other peculiar forms, or it is practiced in preparing such trees for the ornamentation of path sides, etc.; but training such fruits against walls or other shelters is adopted with a view of producing in ungenial climates fruits not otherwise producible in them, or to obtain in perfection in unfavorable localities or soils certain fine varieties of fruits, which even the processes of dwarfing and summer pruning do not enable us, under the circumstances, to ripen satisfactorily. It may be practiced in either or all its forms so far as time, means, and taste permit or prompt. Where it is proposed to cultivate "wall fruit," as the product of trees so trained is termed, the borders or holes for the trees are prepared with more or less care and thoroughness, somewhat after the mode prescribed for grape borders in house culture, page 355. If you desire success, prepare them well. There is an equity in the matter: your pay will be according to your labor. Maiden tree cut back and set out for fan training. Young fan-trained tree with its first year's growth of three shoots. The first step in training is to plant a tree of one year's growth from the bud, technically called a "maiden tree," against a wall or trellis, having first cut it back, if intended to be fan-formed, to within one, or two, or three inches of the point of junction with the stock. Fig. 308. In planting it, let it be set so that the head of the stock where it was cut down after budding and the face of the new cut made in cutting back the young tree may be toward the wall, and the swell of the original bud growth, with its numerous undeveloped buds, be thrown outward to furnish shoots to radiate from that point for training if it be cut very closely back. The precise number of buds that are permitted to start the first year may vary, but for illustration I have chosen three as a sufficient and convenient number (Fig. 309). These are to be laid carefully to their proper places as their growth proceeds by nailing them by means of small bands of cloth or leather placed around them, forming, when nailed, loose loops, through which the shoot runs; and it will generally be found convenient to alternate the sides on which the nails are driven, so that the shoot may be strained in any desired direction. In training immediately upon brick walls, small cast nails are used like those which bootmakers call "sparrow-bills," but larger; but to avoid the necessity of nailing into brick, a frame or trellis, as in open culture, is often set between the wall and the tree, upon which the young shoots may be tied securely but not tightly to their places by strips of bass mat or other material. All growth shoots thrown directly forward from the face of the tree, and all branching growth from the young shoots that are laid into place, must be suppressed as soon as they start, and all over-luxuriance or disproportion in the growth of any one or more of the shoots of the season must be prevented by watchful summer pruning. In the winter pruning these shoots of the season are cut back, according to the vigor of their growth, to the length of from ten to fifteen inches, more or less, as shown in Fig. 310. Fig. 310. Fig. 311. Young fan-trained tree with its first year's growth cut back at the winter pruning. Young fan-trained tree with its second year's growth, each main shoot having thrown out two secondary ones. From each of them the next season three shoots, a main and two opposite side shoots, may be suffered to grow, as Fig. 311. These, like the former year's shoots, are to be laid into place, summer pruned with the same care, and nailed or tied as above directed; cut back each of them at the winter pruning according to the strength of the individual shoot, shortening the secondary shoots in general to about half the length allowed to the main ones, or cutting them nearly as far back as to where the main shoots of the season started, as shown in horizontal training, Fig. 315. This process is continued from year to year, permitting secondary side shoots to branch off from the main ones as the spaces between them widen with their extension, until the whole surface appropriated to the tree is covered with its growth, regularly laid in against the wall, or fence, or trellis, in a flat fan form, as Fig. 312. A full-sized fan-formed tree. a, a. Dotted line showing the point to which a diseased tree may be cut back. When trained trees have thus filled up their allotted space, they must be absolutely limited to their specific boundaries, and only so much wood permitted to grow from year to year as may be required to fill up the blank spots made by the winter pruning. From the very first the trees are to be carefully summer pruned, as directed for dwarf trees, page 255; with proper attention to this, so that no shoot is suffered to grow with disproportionate vigor, it will generally be found sufficient, while the tree is forming, to cut annually from the young shoots at the winter pruning about one third or one half the length of the season's growth. By this course, steadily pursued, the burden of fruit which the tree may become capable of bearing will be concentrated upon and sometimes seem to cover its whole area as it hangs from the numerous fruit branches. If it is intended to train the tree horizontally, it may either be cut back as above directed for fan training, or may be left six or eight inches long from the bud at the setting out, as shown in Fig. 313. 1 Maiden tree cut back and Young horizontal-trained tree with its first year's growth of three shoots shown as cut back at the winter pruning. One upright leader, with not more than two opposite main side shoots, may be allowed to start the first year, the latter to be trained horizontally, and at the winter pruning each must be cut back as shown in Fig. 314 a. In the second year these lengthen from the extreme bud of each, but are not permitted to form secondary side shoots, which, if they put forth, must be nipped throughout the summer; two other main side shoots are also formed and trained |