PROCEEDINGS OP THE ANNUAL MEETING. 297 



that is, at the end of the first year's growth, should be done with great 

 caution not to shorten in too much. Shorten in well, cut out all the 

 crowding-in branches, but I would leave two and one half or three feet 

 of each leading stem that I proposed to have there for the tree, the first 

 year, so as to get up and out of it without too compact a center. Until 

 the tree came into bearing I should prune for form closely, cutting in 

 every year and building the shape of tree which I wanted, which would 

 be a broad, open one with not too much of a high, central top, but a 

 flat-topped tree. That is the method to be carried on until you have 

 built up your tree to the bearing age; and all of that pruning, I may say, 

 may be done any time in the winter after the hardest frost is over, but 

 never in the fall. Fall pruning of the peach is a delusion and a snare, 

 and while you may do it successfully many times, it is dangerous. The 

 pruning of a tree is a weakening process, and to weaken a tree just going 

 into winter quarters, or as it has got in there, is a bad process. I am 

 speaking now of northern climates. We are talking of Michigan and 

 Connecticut. We will not prune until the cold weather of winter is 

 over. When you come to the bearing age, you have another condition. 

 You have been growing this orchard for peaches, not for fun, yet you 

 have been growing it for fun and peaches — I mean the fun of seeing it 

 grow. But eventually you want peaches there, and you have the condi- 

 tions of winter and killing of the buds many times to contend with. If 

 you go in in February or March, when a suitable time has come for 

 pruning, if you are pruning for form, possibly 50, 75, 80, 90, or 99 per cent, 

 of your buds may be dead; and if you go on pruning your tree for form 

 you may sacrifice fifty per cent, of all the buds there are alive, but it does 

 not matter if you sacrifice fifty per cent., if you have fifty per cent, alive, 

 or if you have but twenty-five per cent, alive, you can still afford to 

 sacrifice half of that and have a full crop. If there is only one or two 

 per cent, of live buds, and that is a condition you will have to contend 

 with occasionally, my practice is, and I believe that of the successful men 

 of the future will be, to prune after the buds have begun to swell in the 

 spring. My practice is that in years when there is no uncertainty about 

 the buds being alive, if they are all alive up to the first of March, we 

 go in and trim the whole orchard and trim according to form; and if 

 they are largely killed; as they will be many winters, then we go in and 

 trim for fruit entirely, regardless of form. I have practiced that method 

 of pruning a number of years, a good many in Connecticut, and it has 

 resulted more than satisfactorily. Probably it would be boasting, or 

 seem like it, to say so, but I presume I have had the worst-looking peach 

 orchard at times of any man in America, but I rather think I have 

 made more money out of it, and I know I have had more fun. Yellows 

 and borers are not going to trouble the successful fruitgrower very much. 

 All these things are blessing, all the troubles we have are blessings to us. 



Mr. Morrill: You must be very careful. I was asked one time, up 

 in Oceana county, what I thought of yellows, and I said I thought it was 

 a blessing, and it was hard for me to stay there the rest of the evening. 



Mr. Hale: Yellows, I presume, like the poor, will always be with us^ 

 and needs be taken care of; but there is such a thing as starting right — 

 starting with healthy trees. We have not yet found what yellows is, 

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