108 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 



metrical, evenly distributed heads shown in Fig. 153. An 

 important advantage of thus pruning the peach will be the 

 thinning-out of the fruit-buds; and while the tree will bear 

 perhaps only one-third or one-quarter the number of speci- 

 mens, they will be so much larger as to give as many bush- 

 els, while the quality will be incomparably superior. 



An objection is made that too much labor is required, for 

 this operation. By the use of a good pair of pruning-shears, 

 however, it may be done with great expedition, and half a 

 dozen trees finished in the same time that would be required 

 for a single tree in using the knife. 



Another mode, more rapidly performed, and answering 



FIG. i 54 . 



FIG. 155. 



Heading-back of the Peach. 



nearly the same purpose, is to cut off two or three years 

 growth at a time, from all the longer branches, taking care to 

 leave a sufficiency of young wood, and always cutting back to 

 a fork, so as not to make a dead stub. 



In cases where the pruning has been neglected on young 

 trees, until they-have attained several years of age, and the 

 shoots have just begun to die out in the centre, a still more 

 wholesale kind of pruning may be adopted. Three or four 

 feet may be taken off, in cases of necessity, at a single stroke, 

 and if judiciously performed, will convert the broad head 

 which is beginning to become enfeebled, into a smaller, neat, 



