THE PEACH. 255 



labor, as in America. An English or French gardener 

 will expend more labor on a single tree than the majority 

 of our orchardists do upon one hundred. Our favorable 

 climate obviates a multitude of difficulties that have to be 

 contended with in other countries, and renders unneces- 

 sary the minute and laborious systems of management 

 which they find it absolutely necessary to pursue. 



But this very excellence of our climate has given rise to 

 a most negligent and defective system of cultivation, as is 

 everywhere illustrated in the condition of orchards. The 

 peach, of all other trees, is one that, from its mode of 

 growth and bearing, requires constant pruning to main- 

 tain it in a shapely, thrifty, and productive state. The 

 sap tends powerfully to the extremities of the shoots, 

 more so than in any other fruit tree. The buds that do 

 not push and form shoots the first season after their forma- 

 tion, are lost; they cannot, as in most other trees, be ex- 

 cited into growth ; and hence it is that the lower parts 

 become so rapidly denuded of young wood, and that trees 

 left to themselves six or seven years are in a measure 

 worn out and useless. 



The fruit is borne only on wood of the preceding year 

 (see fruit branches), and every part destitute of such wood 

 must be worthless ; consequently one of the great objects 

 of pruning is to keep all parts of the tree furnished with 

 a regular and constant succession of annual bearing shoots. 



The case of a single shoot will illustrate the influence 

 of pruning and its necessity. By referring to the fruit 

 branch, it will be seen that it is furnished with a certain 

 numbe 1 .' of wood buds and fruit buds. At the base there 

 are always one or two wood buds at least. 



Now, if that shoot were not pruned, all the fruit buds 

 on it would probably produce fruit one, two, or three 

 of the wood buds at the top would make new shoots; 

 these would necessarily be very weak in consequence of 

 the fruit below them. At the end of the season there 



