1884.] PEACH EXPERIENCES. 29 



Mr. Hale. We use Bradley's superphosphate. We have 

 only used one load of horse manure for seven years. We 

 depend wholly on Bradley's fertilizer. One word in regard to 

 heading in. To avoid all danger, we head our trees in after 

 the -0th of March, after the very cold weather is over. When 

 I was a little boy, like all other boys, I used to stub my toe 

 and cut my fingers, and I noticed that in the fall of the year 

 mv finger aclied worse when it was cut than it did in warm 

 weather. Therefore, I thought it was not a good plan to cut 

 my finger in the fall, nor to cut my peach trees, because they 

 would feel it more in cold weather. Prune them any time 

 after the 20th of March, before the sap starts. But by all 

 means, if you are going to have an orchard, be sure and head 

 it in when it has made a growth of more than sixteen inches. 

 I live on alluvial hills, over 400 feet above tide water. I 

 never trim any kind of a tree in the fall. If I trim a pear 

 tree in the fall, the limbs will surely die back, and that is a 

 hardy tree. If I trim it in the spring, it does not hurt it any. 

 It is just so with peach trees. I would recommend, in our 

 climate, at any rate, the trimming of trees in the spring, by 

 all means. 



Question. How much would you head back a vigorous 

 peach tree ? 



Mr. Augur. I think that depends a little upon the tree 

 itself. If a tree has been headed in repeatedly, I think there 

 is such a thing as overdoing it, making it too compact. It 

 seems to me that the right way is not only to shorten back, 

 but to thin out, so as to leave the tree reasonaljly open. 

 Where the tree is in good shape, and about what we want, 

 our practice has been to cut back those branches which 

 extended out farthest, those which are most rampant in growth, 

 not cutting off every individual twig, but pruning as you see 

 they want it. If we cut off everything, we make too bushy a 

 tree ; that is my idea of it. I have seen trees that had 

 been so headed back that they looked like a sheared hemlock 

 — all a mass of green. 



