158 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



inches asunder, are rubbed off, leaving those only 

 which proceed from the upper side of the branch. 

 When the young wood has extended to the length of 

 5 or 6 inches it is stopped, but the leading branches 

 are not interfered with. Every year will produce a 

 side shoot on each side of the tree, and the laterals 

 that proceed from them at the distance we have 

 stated, are at first laid in between them, but the 

 following spring these are removed from the wall and 

 trained up in the main side branches. By the 

 autumn of the third year the number of laterals will 

 be doubled on the two side branches first laid in, as 

 a new lateral is sure to spring from the base of the 

 one laid in the previous season, as well as one from 

 its point. As to winter pruning in the fourth year, 

 all the laterals of two years' growth, and which have 

 already produced a crop of fruit, are to be removed 

 entirely, and those of the previous summer's forma- 

 tion are to be unfastened from the wall and laid upon 

 the main leading side branches in the place of those 

 cut out." l 



My objection to this otherwise neat and very sys- 

 tematic mode of training is, in the first place, that 

 it takes a much longer time to cover a given space of 

 trellis or wall than it requires to do so on the fan 

 system, when the needless and objectionable close- 

 cutting-back system is not adhered to. Then, again, 

 when any of the leading branches give way no 

 uncommon thing in peach-trees a great gap in the 

 tree is created, which it takes longer to make up than 

 when a gap takes place in fan training. 



The time for pruning the peach under glass must 

 be regulated by the time that forcing is commenced. 



1 Book of the Garden. 



