486 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



iiing the brandies to the point of keeping an open, well ventilated top. This 

 method is far less expensive, for the tendency of '*' shorten ing-in," is to make 

 the top more full and compact. Then, again, to have fair fruit, and prevent 

 a mass of feeble growth to fill the top with dead wood the following season, 

 brings the necessity of much summer pruning. As to the yellows, that great 

 inscrutable dread of the peach-grower, we refer to the able report of oar com- 

 mittee, with only this admonition, that with axe and spade and fire the most 

 radical treatment brings the greater safety. 



To have in this New West the peach in full luxuriance and perfection, as in 

 its native Orient, with its most beautiful fruit, a health-giving delicacy, upon 

 tables of rich and poor, should be warrant enough for the utmost diligence in 

 its cultivation ; for in the justice of God's government we cannot expect the 

 continuance of a blessing we do not deserve and appreciate. 



hesitate about adopting so simple a course of treatment to secure such valuable results? We 

 recommend it with entire confidence to the practice of every man in the country that 

 cultivates a peach tree. After he has seen and tasted its good rfi'ects, we do not fear his 

 laying it aside.* — Pages 5S3-5So, Downing^s Fruits and Fniit- Trees of America. 



* Onr attention has been drawn to the following remarkable examples of the good effects of regular 

 pruning, which we translate from the leading French journal of horticulture. We ask the attention of our 

 readers to these cases, especially after perusing our remarks on the Yellows and its cause. 



" M. Duvilliers laid before the Royal Society of Horticulture an account of some old peach trees that he 

 had lately seen at the Chateau de Villiers, near FerteAleps (Seine-et-Oise). These trees, eight in number, 

 are growing upon a terrace wall, which they cover perfectly, and yield abundant crops. The gardener assured 

 M. Duvilliers that they had been under his care dufiug the thirty years that he had been at the chateau ; that 

 ihey were as large when he iirst saw them as at present, and that he supposed them to be at least sixty years 

 old. We cannot dovbt (says the editor) that it is to the anm/al jymning that these i)each trees owe this long life; 

 for ihepeaclt trees that are left to themselves in the latitude of Paris nerer live beyond twenty or thirty years. 

 M. Duvilliers gave the accurate measurement of the trunks and branches of these trees, aud staled, what it is 

 more interesting to know, that althougli all their trunks are hollow, like those of old willows, yet their vigor 

 and fertility are still quite unimpaired." (Annates de la Socitte d'Bortio/ltxre, tome xxx, )}. 58.) 



In volume 2.% page 67, of the same journal, is an account of a remarkable peach tree in the demesne of M. 

 •loubert, near Yilleneuve le Roi (deuaiiment de I'Youne). It is trained against one of the wings of the 

 mansion, covers a large space with its branches, and the circumference of its trunli, taken at some distance 

 from the ground, is two feet and a half. It is knoivn to be. actually, of more than 93 years'' ffrou'th, and is 

 believed to be more than 100 years old. Itisslill in perfect health and vigor. It is growingin strongsoil, bulit 

 has been regularly subjected to a uniform and severe system of prujiing, equivalent to our shorteuing-in 

 mode. Where can any peach tree of half this age be found in tlie United States, naturally a much more 

 favorable climate for it than that of France? 



