One of the things that may discourage gardeners from growing some sorts of fruit is the apparently elaborate pruning methods that seem to be involved. Whole books are devoted to this esoteric art and offer many different methods, especially for grapes and pears which seem to have attracted more different and diverse pruning regimes than all other fruits put together. In these complex instructions, that pruning, which is the truly necessary minimum, has become overtly complicated - mostly because of the desire to train fruit trees into constricted forms.