246 THE PEACH. 



Winters;* leaving only the large, bare, and rigid limbs with 

 vitality sufficient to produce buds and leaves, and all the sap 

 and growth are employed and forced to the ends of these lean 

 branches, causing their unnatural elongation. (See cut.) 

 Hence the necessity of keeping these long branches constantly 

 cut hack, or never allowed to straggle off; and if they should 

 bear fruit, the leverage would generally split them off the 

 stem and ruin the trees ; so, that the shortening system is a 

 nee essai^y restraint m both the North and South; but it is 

 practiced (in part) for different purposes. In the former case, 

 it is to screen the stem and interior of the tree from the 

 scorching and blistering effects of the sun, and to increase 

 the size and quality of the fruit by reducing the quantity; while 

 at the North, it is done to increase the number and promote 

 the growth of short branches, and throw more vigor into the 

 small shoots and twigs about the stem and body of the tree, 

 so as to keep them in a healthy, vigorous condition, to stand 

 the cold of the Winters, and to induce fruitfulness and supe- 

 riority of fruit. 



Northern writers and cultivators of this valuable fruit do 

 not seem to know why they are compelled to take this cutting 

 back and shortening-in course; but erroneously suppose they 

 are correcting the habit of the tree — forgetting that the peach 

 is a native of warm climates, and that it is naturally a round, 

 bushy, compact headed tree. In other words the rounded 

 shape of the head of the tree at the North is the result of art, 

 while at the South, it is the work of nature. 

 > The early cultivators of this fruit in the United States, or 

 in the Mi idle States, seem to have 'been of the opinion that 

 the tree required but little, if any, pruning, training, or cul- 

 ture; and this opinion might have been strengthened by the 

 fact that the Winters, if not more mild, were prevented from 

 damaging the trees and the fruit by the protection afforded 

 by the tall forests that surrounded the small clearings of that 

 period. The curculio, the borer, and the disease called Yel- 

 loius were entirely unknown — and the crops were raised in 

 such abundance, without care o-r special culture, as to be fed 



* This is sometimes the case in some parts of Virginia. 



