234 CALIFORNIA FRUITS : HOW TO GROW THEM 



sunburn until protected by their own roughness, and have never been 

 pruned with an axe, and never lost a limb no had a wound in to 

 which decay could penetrate and descend to the root. When the peach 

 has a fair chance in its aerial parts and is in a soil which favors health 

 of the roots, it shows itself to be very long-lived in California. When 

 trees break to pieces and show decay wounds, they are in bad places, 

 and have suffered through natural stress or have been weakened by 

 cultural errors. 



In favorable soils the peach is stronger and longer lived in the 

 root than in the top, and sometimes triumphs over neglect by discarding 

 old, wind-broken, sun-burned and bark-bound branches, and forms a 

 new head of its own. Such renewal is sometimes very rapid. In the 

 interior valley new shoots on a cut-back Muir tree have grown twelve 

 feet in one season, with a thickness of one and one-half inches at the 

 base. Such shoots will bear the following summer and proper selection 

 should be made from them to shape the new tree all others being 

 removed. Cutting back for a new head kills some trees, probably 

 those which through hardship are weak in the root, but most peach 

 trees take to it kindly. 



It is through this disposition to renewal of good wood that the 

 intelligent system of pruning which is now prevalent, ministers to 

 the longevity as well as the profitability of the tree, aiding it to con- 

 stantly renew its youth by restraining its exuberance, and at the same 

 time furnishing it sound new wood on which to grow its fruit foliage. 

 But while these are facts, there is some difference in opinion as to the 

 point at which an old tree becomes less valuable than a young one. 

 Along the Sacramento River some count about a dozen good crops as 

 the limit, and thus replace the trees when about fifteen years of age. 

 This is a point which may vary greatly, according to local conditions. 



Early Productiveness. Quite as important as the longevity of 

 the peach tree are the facts of its rapid growth and early produc- 

 tiveness. It is the first of our fruit trees to attain size and yield a 

 profitable crop. In localities best suited to its growth it will mature 

 some fruit 'the second summer in the orchard if the small shoots are 

 not pruned away from the main branches, and during the third summer 

 averages of forty to fifty pounds per tree have been secured from 

 considerable acreages. These facts are stated to show what the peach 

 of good variety may do in a good situation and soil and with the best 

 of care. Of course they are not to be taken as average results, although 

 greater than those given are sometimes attained. For example, on the 

 rich, alluvial land near Visalia, an Admiral Dewey yearling tree 

 planted in March, 1904, had in October, 1905, attained these dimen- 

 sions : Near the ground the trunk was eleven and three-quarter inches 

 in circumference, branching two feet from the ground it had four main 

 branches, each seven inches in circumference; height of tree, twelve 

 feet; spread of branches, ten feet. It grew near a crack in a cement 

 ditch and so had all the moisture it could use, and being in a free, 

 open soil was not impaired by standing water. 



