20S 0)1 the M'jnagement of Peach Trees. 



with theory, with practice, and with common sense. A few 

 moments' reflection would convince any person, that pruning, 

 thinning, shortening, call it what 3^ou like, severely practised, 

 with the view of checking the over-luxuriance of healthy 

 trees, can have little better hope of success, than an attempt to 

 lessen the flow of a constant stream, by raising an obstruction 

 in its bed, or shortening its channel, without first stopping 

 the supply. Any ignoramus knows, that such an expedient 

 would only result in a greater evil, and that a current thus 

 temporarily checked, would only flow with the greater violence, 

 the moment it surmounted its temporary obstruction. Just so 

 must a luxuriant tree become more luxuriant, by the severe 

 pruning of the previous winter. Those who assert that se- 

 vere winter-pruning of the branches will make luxuriant 

 trees productive, and prolong their age, must have learnt very 

 different lessons, from experience, than those which I have 

 acquired. Indeed, I may say that fourteen years' close prac- 

 tice, in their culture, under various circumstances, has taught 

 me quite the reverse. In my father's garden, at Dundee, 

 there grew a peach tree, a few years ago, and very likely is, 

 at the present time, which hardly had a knife upon it for 

 twenty years ; in fact it did not require it, it grew so very lit- 

 tle, yet scarcely ever failed in bearing a crop, less or more. 

 This tree had only a few square feet of ground to grow in, 

 but a small drain, running into a cesspool, went under it. 

 This drain and cesspool required cleaning, once or twice 

 every year. And the roots which had got into these places, 

 were necessarily cut, every time they were cleaned. Some- 

 times, this drain got so full of roots, that the water of the sink 

 inside, was stopped back. About twelve years ago, I asked 

 my father how old this tree was, and he said, that he had 

 gathered peaches off" of that same tree, when he was a boy ; 

 (he was then near sixty years of age ;) he said, for the last 

 twenty years, he knew very little difference on it. Some 

 years after this, I tried to bring trees under the same condi- 

 tions, by root-pruning, and succeeded perfectly. At the same 

 time, with the view of proving the effects of winter-pruning, 

 upon the size and quahty of the fruit, I tried the following 

 experiments : — 



I chose four trees, growing side by side, (on a south as- 



