IX 

 PRUNING AND RENOVATION 



The peach tree requires more pruning than al- 

 most any other orchard fruit. It grows rapidly and 

 is subject to many diseases and accidents which 

 make pruning desirable. While many apple grow- 

 ers find it possible to continue in business with 

 some profit for years without pruning their orchards, 

 no one thinks of conducting a peach orchard in 

 this manner. 



It must be admitted, however, that with all this 

 need of pruning no very definite or very reliable 

 system has been evolved in the United States. We 

 cannot even say that any practical peach grower in 

 the country has settled upon a complete and satis- 

 factory pruning system. Even the best growers, 

 while they have fairly definite ideas of what they 

 are trying to do, are ready to confess that there is 

 a good deal more that they do not know. They are 

 still blundering along pretty much in the dark. Out 

 of this general mass of ignorance and diverse prac- 

 tice it is very hard to generalize a system of rules 

 which may be confidently recommended to the 

 novice. A few suggestions can be made, but the 

 pruning of peach trees has got to be worked out 

 largely by experience, every man for himself. This 

 may not be a very encouraging way to put it; and 

 certainly one who writes a book on peach culture 

 ought to pretend to know all about the subject, but 

 such a pretence would be the merest hypocrisy. 



Pruning begins, of course, the moment the tree 

 is planted, or even before. The tree is cut back 

 at the time it is set with a special view to the 



105 



