THE PEACH IN CALIFORNIA 239 



fornia is too young to mark limits of duration, but there are in- 

 stances in the earliest-settled places in the State, where peach trees 

 above fifty years old are still vigorous and productive. Some trees 

 have, in fact, gone along in thrift until they have a bark below which 

 looks like that of a forest tree, and framework of main branches 

 sound and stalwart throughout because they have never been 

 allowed to sunburn until protected by their own roughness, and 

 have never been pruned with an axe, and never lost a limb nor had 

 a wound into 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. 



Renewal by Cutting Back. In favorable soils the peach is 

 stronger and longer lived in the root than in the top, and some- 

 times 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 sea- 

 son, 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. This is generally done by heading back all the limbs 

 to a foot or two from their start from the trunk in the latter part 

 of the dormant season and whitewashing the stumps thoroughly. 

 Some growers advocate a gradual renewal, cutting back one main 

 branch a year so that the loss of a crop may not occur. Peach trees 

 are also cut back for grafting or budding over, as will be described 

 presently. 



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 

 constantly 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 



