THE PEACH. 



281 



PRUNING. 



No fruit tree needs a more regular and constant pruning 

 than the peach, and none more frequently meets with total 

 neglect. The young shoots, to live and flourish, need a 

 very full exposure to sun and air. But young peach trees, 

 if left to grow in their own way, become covered with a 

 dense profusion of leaves. These shade the interior, and as 

 a necessary consequence, the central shoots gradually perish, 



and leave the bare 

 limbs. As the tree ad- 

 vances in growth, these 

 become long, naked 

 branches, with tufts of 

 leaves only at their ex- 

 treme ends, fig. 229. 

 These extremeties are 

 loaded with an overcrop 

 of fruit, diminished in 

 flavor by crowding, and 

 often breaking the tree 

 under their lever -like 

 weight. Trees wholly 

 neglected in pruning, 



Fig. 229; usually become by this 



process, of little value, after the lapse of some years. 



To avoid this unfavorable result, the shortening-in mode of 

 pruning has been very successfully adopted, which consists in 

 yearly cutting back the extremeties, so as to counteract the 

 spread of the limbs, and to lessen the weight of foliage. 



The most easy, uniform, and 

 certain rule to follow, in adopt- 

 ing this system of pruning, is to 

 cut off, early in spring or in win- 

 ter, one-third to one-half of all 

 the shoots of the previous sum- 

 mer's growth. This thins the 

 crop of fruit, and greatly redu- 

 ces the amount of leaves ; and 

 while the fruit is lessened in 

 number, the amount is not di- 

 Fi a. 230. minished, and the flavor is im- 



