THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 115 



which keeps up the future fabric of the tree. And what is said of 

 the lowest fork (by which latter term I mean the angle necessarily 

 formed by the divergence of any two branches), is equally true of 

 all the other forks or angles all over the tree. The securing a nice 

 young shoot annually at this point being to guarantee a lot of half- 

 denuded branches, which, whatever fruit they may bear on their 

 extremities, can never be perfectly satisfactory. Equal in import- 

 ance to proper disbudding is the timely stopping or pinching of all 

 gross shoots, which may be readily distinguished from ordinary 

 wood, by their speedy tendency to produce side-spray, almost coeval 

 with the extension of the growing fruit. These have (as may be 

 guessed by the most inexperienced) a continual tendency to attract 

 an undue proportion of the sap ; and if left unmolested, or merely 

 pruned in the " rest season," they will assuredly become dangerous 

 monopolists, and naked portions of walling will be the sure con- 

 sequence. The best practice, therefore, is to continue pinching off 

 the heads of such as long as they continue to appear. To be sure 

 exceptions will arise at times, such as in the case of young trees 

 required to fill up a given space as speedily as possible, and which 

 have not as yet begun to bear. 



In such cases they may be allowed to ramble a foot or more in 

 length during the early part of the summer; still, I am not assured 

 that any very great benefits are derivable ; a little off-hand appear- 

 ance is perhaps the chief. Another point of paramount importance 

 is freedom from insects ; so important, indeed, that it is impossible 

 to expel, and indeed difficult long to sustain the vitality of the trees, 

 if such be permitted to infest them unmolested. A thorough 

 syringing, two consecutive evenings, with tobacco water, and sulphur 

 daubed as paint between the branches in April, have given me an 

 immunity from the aphides and the red spider for some years. 

 Blister on the leaves and gum on the wood is, I may say, almost 

 totally unknown with me, as to out-door peaches and nectarines ; 

 and this I attribute in the main to a soil comparatively shallow. 

 Summer disbudding and dressing is of nearly equal importance to 

 our other fruits. A timely attention to this is indeed one of the 

 prime secrets of successful cultivation, especially to trees on walls 

 and under trellis culture. 



The artificial twisting and bending of the leaders causes them 

 at all times to produce a host of spray, not eligible to the purpose in 

 hand, for Nature abhors what we so much admire— systematic 

 training. "We try to make neat and prim bushes, Nature is ever 

 attempting to make them trees. We are ever trying to increase 

 the amount of succulency and richness of pulp, Nature merely 

 aims at perfecting the seed; thus a continual warfare is waged, 

 and when true science is brought to bear, a knowledge based on a 

 thorough appreciation of the character and habits of the tree, 

 its mode of growth, and its root action, together with a just 

 estimate of the character of soils, man comes off the conqueror; 

 hut he can only continue to hold his conquest by the most in- 

 domitable perseverance ! 



Aprl. 



