15S PRUNING AND MANAGEMENT OF THE PEACH TREE. 



75. From what has been said, it is now evident that there is 

 no great difficulty in pruning wood-branches, and any one can 

 ensure success when the operations necessary to be performed on 

 them, from the time the tree is planted till that of its complete 

 formation, shall have been detailed. 



76. 2nd, Pruning the Fruit-branches. In a Peach-tree, trained 

 according to the square mode, if we except the two main branches 

 and the twelve secondary branches that compose the skeleton, all 

 the others may be considered as shoots and fruit-branches of a 

 mixed nature ; for the greater number of them bear both leaves 

 and fruit. 



77. The way of obtaining the greatest possible quantity of 

 fruit from a tree, without exhausting it, consists, then, in the art 

 of keeping the whole extent of all the leading branches well 

 furnished with shoots capable of producing fruit, a property 

 which they lose when more than one year old. We must therefore 

 know how to procure a succession of these by suppressing those 

 branches that have borne fruit, and which, after that, are merely 

 wood-branches. This is done by properly pruning the fruit-shoots, 

 and by promoting the growth of others to succeed those that 

 have borne fruit. 



78. On the fruit-branches there are eyes which may be single, 

 double, triple, quadruple, or even more numerous (9 to 14). 

 Hence there are four sorts of fruit-branches. The first, which has 

 single eyes, usually a flower-bud, is long and slender, and is termi- 

 nated by a pushing-eye or growing-point. It is shown in Fig. 1. 

 The terminal pushing-eye is seen at a ; all the buds, b, are single 

 and flower-buds. Sometimes it has also at its base another wood- 

 bud, a, and when this is the case the shoot is considered well 

 constituted. These wood-buds are found more especially on the 

 under side, and at the base of wood-branches, particularly in 

 aspects not much exposed to the sun. 



79. The second (Fig. 2) has double eyes, c ; the one, a, a wood- 

 bud ; the other a flower-bud. 



80. The third (Fig. 3) has triple eyes, d ; two of them flower- 

 buds, and a wood-bud, a, between them. 



81. The fourth, the length of which varies from an inch and 

 quarter to about three inches, forms a little spur, which in growing 

 displays a small cluster or bouquet, composed of four flower-buds, 

 and sometimes more (Fig. 4, 5, g), in the midst of which is a 

 pushing-eye, a. This kind is a fruit-branch properly so called, for 

 it produces with greater certainty the finest fruits. Tt is only 



