Principles and PraElice of Pruning. 



93 



connexion with cutting entirely out all the feeble shoots where they 

 grow too thickly, the desired object will be fully attained, and the 

 trees, as they grow older, instead of presenting the appearance of 

 Fig. 122, will form the round, symmetrical, evenly distributed heads 



Fig. 122. Neglected Peach-tree. 



shown in Fig. 123. An important advantage of thus pruning the 

 peach will be the thinning-out of the fruit-buds ; and while the tree 

 will bear perhaps only one-third or one-quarter the number of speci- 

 mens, they will be so much larger as to give as many bushels, while 

 the quality will be incomparably superior. 



An objection is made that too much labor is required for this ope- 

 ration. By the use of a good pair 

 of pruning-shears, however, it may 

 be done with great expedition, and 

 half a dozen trees finished in the 

 same time that would be required for 

 a single tree in using the knife. 



Another mode, more rapidly per- 

 formed, and answering nearly the 

 same purpose, is to cut off two or 

 three years' growth at a time, from all 

 the longer branches, taking care to 

 leave a sufficiency of young wood, 

 and always cutting back to a fork, so 

 as not to make a dead stub. 



In cases where the pruning has been neglected on young trees, 

 until they have attained several years of age, and the shoots have 

 just begun to die out in the centre, a still more wholesale kind of 



Fig. 123. Well pruned Peach-tree. 



