580 THE PEACH AND NECTARINE. 



that stopping the shoots, when they are an inch or two in length, faci- 

 litates the production of blossom-buds and the ripening of the wood. 

 The French method of disbudding in spring and summer, and pinching 

 off with the finger and thumb in the latter season, instead of leaving 

 the young shoots to become woody, and afterwards using the knife, 

 and also their mode of pinching off the blossom-buds, instead of allow- 

 ing more blossoms than are wanted to set their fruit, and afterwards 

 thinning it out, and of taking out all the leaf-buds not wanted as soon 

 as they have swelled a little, so as to have very few shoots to remove, 

 has been imitated by the cultivators of fruit trees in pots, and a modifi- 

 cation of this pinching system would be useful on walls. A French gar- 

 dener seldom uses his knife to a peach-tree in the summer season ; and, 

 indeed, if he were to allow as much of the strength of the tree to run 

 to waste in fruits to be thinned out, and shoots to be cut away in winter, 

 his borders, which are narrow, shallow, and poor compared with those 

 in British gardens, would be unable to support the tree. 



Thinning the fruit must be attended to when the blossoms have not 

 been thinned, or not thinned sufficiently : it should commence when 

 the fruit are about the size of large peas, and be continued till the 

 stoning season is over. Healthy trees may be allowed to ripen four 

 peaches to every square foot. The smaller the number and the larger 

 the size, the less will the tree be exhausted in proportion to the weight 

 of fruit produced ; for, as we have already observed, a greater exhaustion 

 is produced by the seed and stone than by their fleshy envelope. Ten 

 dozen of peaches, weighing 20 Ibs., will exhaust a tree nearly twice as 

 much as five dozen amounting to the same weight. 



Treatment of the Peach Border. The peach, as well as most other 

 wall-fruit trees, is commonly planted in borders far too deep and too 

 rich. If a good loamy soil from the surface of an old pasture-ground 

 can be procured, and if the border is not cropped, it will require no 

 manure for several years. If the soil is either poor at first, or becomes 

 poor, bone manure may be applied, as decomposing slowly; or if the 

 trees become weak, the surface may be annually mulched with stable 

 dung. All fruit-tree borders should be occasionally forked up gently ; 

 but no spade should ever be used for this purpose, not even among 

 gooseberry-bushes ; for more injury is done by it than most people 

 are aware of. No vegetables should ever be cultivated in fruit-tree 

 borders, more especially none that require manure. Throughout the 

 summer the peach border will require occasional watering in dry 

 weather, but water ought to be withheld when the fruit is ripening. 



Over luxuriant peach-trees may be reduced by disleafing, root- 

 pruning, or, what is perhaps the best mode, especially if the tree has 

 been too deeply planted, or that effect has been produced by the sinking 

 of the tree or the raising of the border, by taking up and replanting, 

 bringing the roots within six inches of the surface. The operation may 

 be performed in autumn immediately after the fall of the leaf; and 

 during next summer the surface of the border should be well mulched 

 to retain moisture and encourage the production of fibres. 



Old decaying peach-trees may sometimes be renovated by cutting 



