THE PEACH IN THE NORTH. 



This fourth season young wood must be laid in all over the tree, — say a shoot where each 

 stopping took place, and one equidistant between these stoppings. The extremities of the 

 branches must be trained out; in the case of all moderate growing trees they will require 

 nothing more, but in very thrifty ones they should have one stopping as in the previous 

 year. The future treatment of those trees will be the same as for all trees on trellises — 

 namely, laying in young wood through summer; shortening and thinning it out in the 

 early spring, and the usual routine of culture. A person glancing at the system of train- 

 ing which I have been endeavoring to elucidate, will, if they are acquainted with the 

 fan systems of training, soon perceive a marked difference between that and this; under 

 that system shoots are only partially shortened after the first and second year's growth, 

 and some branches, as may be expected, grow much stronger, and after much care and 

 labor, the symmetry of the tree is frequently lost by one or two branches growing much 

 stronger than the others, when the tree becomes what is called one sided; this can never 

 be the case under the system I have been describing, with a moderate amount of care. 

 Under the old system a few fruit may be had on the third year, whilst under this system 

 none will be had until the fourth. 



This to some may appear an advantange, but it really is none, as the crop on the new 

 system, the fourth, and all subsequent years, will be much greater than on the old, and the 

 trees more thrifty and beautiful; the few fruit, therefore, obtained the third year, is not 

 worth considering. 



In laying before the readers of the Horticulturist the foregoing system of training, I 

 must be understood it is not one of my own invention, but is that carried out by one of 

 the best practical gardeners in England — Mr. T. Hatch, late gardener to P. J. Miles, 

 Esq., Leigh Court, near Bristol; his fruit has been invariably abundant and fine, and his 

 trees among the iinest specimens in England, more beautiful and regular on the walls than 

 any pencil can trace them on paper. 



How frequently is a crop of fruit lost by having the flowers destroyed by frost, and bad 

 weather, when in bloom. Now this may be prevented to a very great extent, and at tri- 

 fling cost, with the trained fruit trees, or indeed any moderate sized specimens. Let us 

 examine into the cause of failure, and we shall be better enabled to find a cure; and if the 

 trees are healthy, it generally takes place in this way. On the disappearance of winter, 

 say the end of March or beginning of April — it of course varies with season and locality — 

 very frequently there are some warm sunny days which speedily bring peaches, nectarines 

 and apricots into bloom, and this is frequently followed by weather cold and unpropitious, 

 which totally destroys the bloom. If the trees, on the first approach of fine weather, had 

 been protected by day from the sun, and kept cool, exposing them freely by night, the 

 trees will be retarded in their blooming until a period much later than they otherewise 

 would have been, and they will set a crop with much greater certainty. Mats, cheap mus- 

 lin, or in fact any material to protect them from the sun, will answer this purpose. The 

 common practice is to have the fruit trees come naturally into bloom, and when in this 

 state to protect them by night, and also by day, in bad weather.. Now the trees should 

 be carefully protected from sun by day, and exposed at night — on the first approach of 

 warm days in early spring — that they may be retarded to as late a period as possible. 

 When the trees are bursting into bloom, reverse cautiously j'our treatment, and protect by 

 night your expanded blooms, and cold bad days — through the day expose them to the 

 genial influence of light and air, and abundant crops will repay the cultivator. Protection, 

 many may imagine to be verj^ expensive, or in other words, " will not pay," but let them 

 try it on their best fruits, and their moderate sized trees. There are many things which 



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