264 THE GARDENER. [June 



to the lengtli of the shoots, two buds to be left on the under side ; if 

 the shoots are long enough to have room for three on the upper side, 

 the buds on the one side to alternate in position with those on the 

 other side. These lateral growths with the leader are enough to lay 

 a foundation for the future full-grown tree. The lateral growths 

 should be allowed to grow without being stopped. Should the leaders 

 show signs of growing very vigorously, at the expense of the side 

 growths, stop them whenever they show such a tendency. This will 

 cause them to make lateral growths freely, and equally balance the 

 growth of all the young shoots. This encouragement of lateral 

 growths, especially on the young wood in the centre of the tree, gives 

 sufficient to furnish the tree without having recourse to the undesirable 

 practice of first allowing a few very strong leaders to monopolise the 

 sap, and then to cut them down at the winter pruning. In this way 

 much time is gained in covering a wall or trellis with bearing wood. 



A young tree thus managed on what may be termed a mean between 

 the extension and cutting-hard-back system, produces a comparatively 

 large well-furnished tree the autumn after it is planted, and one 

 which requires very little winter pruning before starting it into 

 another year's growth, when the same principle should be applied, 

 especially to the extremities of the tree. All the winter pruning that 

 is necessary is &imply to shorten back the young growths to thoroughly- 

 ripened w^ood, and to remove any lateral growths, the presence of 

 which would crowd the tree. There is, however, comparatively little 

 difficulty in ripening the wood of young Peaches under glass with the 

 command of fire-heat. By the second autumn after planting, the trees 

 will cover the trellis to a very considerable extent. 



After the trees have grown and covered the space allotted to each, 

 the system of pruning must be directed so as to continually keep the 

 whole tree regularly supplied "with young fruit-bearing wood. With 

 a view to this, of course the yearly removal of old wood in winter, 

 and the laying in of a corresponding amount of young wood in sum- 

 mer, must be carefully attended to. Fig. 13 gives an idea of what I 

 mean by this, and will serve to illustrate the pruning out of old wood 

 and laying in the new. The shoots represented by the solid lines are 

 those which bore fruit last summer, and those shown by the dotted 

 lines, growing from, base of the fruit-bearing wood, are those laid in in 

 summer to bear the following season. In pruning such a tree, the 

 last year's wood, shown by the solid lines, is cut off close to the young 

 w^ood w^hich is to supply the next year's crop. 



Some make a practice of cutting back the young bearing wood to 

 two-thirds its length. T do not advocate this indiscriminately. When 

 the shoots are long and not well ripened, and the buds consequently 



