160 PRUNING AND MANAGEMENT OF THE PEACH TREE. 



conducted so as to always encourage that of the lowest one ; all 

 those that are useless are pruned off, and we check, by pinching, 

 if they are growing too luxuriantly, those intended to be preserved ; 

 and lastly, the shoot which has been selected to become, at the 

 following pruning, the successional one, is maintained in a proper 

 degree of vigour. 



85. The following year the whole of the former year's fruit- 

 branch is cut off above the shoot encouraged at its base, which 



now becomes a fruit-branch, bearing fruit in its turn, and is 

 pruned so as to encourage, as before said, the development of 

 one or two shoots at its base, one of which is to become its 

 successional shoot. The same operation is performed year after 

 year. For the better understanding of this see Fig. 9. The 

 branch a, at first pruned at c, has borne two fruits at o o, and has 

 made the shoot seen from c to a; at the same time it has produced 

 the shoot b, which has now become a successional fruit-branch, 

 and with this view the branch a is pruned at d, immediately above 

 the insertion of the old fruit-branch ; and this successional shoot 

 at e, above the double eye i which will bear fruit, as well as the two 

 single eyes lower down the shoot, viz., k, I. At m and n are seen 



