198 P2ACHES. 



of June. Peach trees when left to their natural course 

 are apt to run up to a long naked stem, with a few 

 naked limbs and small weak boughs at the tops, the 

 tree inclining to one side in an uncomely form, and 

 not capable of bearing much fruit. Peach trees, says 

 Mr. Cobbett, should be so pruned as to give them a 

 good broad form. The tree should in the first place 

 be budded very near the ground. After planting it 

 where it is to stand, cut it down to witnin 1 1-2 feet 

 of the ground, and always cut sloping, close to a bud. 

 In this foot and a half there will be many buds, and 

 they will the first summer, send out many shoots. 

 Now when shoots begin to appear, rub them all off 

 but three ; leave the top one, and one on each side, at 

 suitable distance lower down. These will in time be- 

 come limbs. The next year, tap the upright shoot 

 that came out of the top bud again so as to bring out 

 other horizontal limbs, pointing in a different direction 

 from those that came out the last year. Thus the tree 

 will get a spread : after this keep down the aspiring 

 shoots ; and every winter cut out some of the weak 

 wood, that the tree may not be over burdened with 

 wood. The lowest limb of the tree should come out 

 of the trunk not more than 9 or 10 inches from the 

 groumV When peach trees come into a bearing 

 state, they produce two sorts of buds : where three 

 stand cloie together, the two on each side are called 

 flower or blossom buds, and the central one is called 

 a wood bud. The former rise immediately from the 

 eyes of the shoots, arid are round, short, and promi- 

 nent, while the wood, or shoot buds are oblong, nar- 

 row, and flaltish. Sometimes whole trees, or a large 

 proportion of the branches, produce nothing but sin- 

 gle flower buds, and in pruning, if a shoot be cut off at 

 a single flower bud, the remains of it, as far down as 

 the next wood bud, it is said, will surely die ; it must, 

 therefore^ be observed, as a rule, to cut just above the 



