STANDARDS are those trees or shrubs which stand singly, without being attached to any wall or support. In gardening and planting they are distinguished into three kinds, the full standard, the half standard, and the dwarf standard. The full standards are trees whose stems are suffered to grow seven or eight feet or more without allowing side branches to be developed, but at this point are allowed to spread in all directions. In this way most fruit-trees, with the exception of the vim, may be grown, though many of those of the almond tribe, as the peach, apricot, &c., are best grown against a wall. The various kinds of apple, pear, and plum trees are grown as full standards. In fruit-trees the primary branch or stem is often cut off at a certain height for the purpose of favouring the lateral growth ; but in forest trees grown for the sake of timber or for ornament, this treatment is never resorted to.
Half standards are those plants which are allowed to run up three or four feet and then permitted to branch out. The height at which it is desired a tree should branch out may be frequently secured by cutting off the lower branches up to that point, or by cutting down the primary branch and allowing the highest lateral branches to de velope themselves. Many shrubs grow naturally in this manner, and
when fruit-trees are grown in this way, it is done as a matter of convenience for gathering the fruit, or ensuring their growth under particular circumstances.
Dwarf standards are those plants whose stems are only allowed to reach a height of one or two feet before they are permitted to branch, and this object is effected in the same manner as in the last. All kinds of fruit-trees, as apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees, may be grown as dwarf standards, but these trees do not bear so good fruit under such treatment as when allowed to grow as half or full standards. Goose berry and currant trees are best treated in this way, and when care is taken to thin them well, they produce by far the finest fruit when grown as dwarf standards of about a foot high. It is in this way that the fruit of the gooseberry has been brought to so great perfection in Lancashire and elsewhere. Many shrubs may be trained as dwarf standards, although in most instances they are more ornamental when allowed to grow as bushes with several stems direct from the ground.