I 



ir.ant by the sap passing them to those at the summit, 

 are made to develope themselves into shoots or 

 branches. Hence It is that we apply shortening-in. 



Let us take a youni; last year's shoot of the peach, 

 (fig- 3,) furnished with both fruit and wood buds, for 

 illustration. Now if this shoot is left entire, the 

 buds at the point only will produce shoots, and all 

 the rest will be a naked space. But we cut at the 

 cross line, and thus induce the wood buds on the 

 lower parts to develope and make young, vigorous 

 shoots for next season, and at the same time we 

 reduce the quantity of fruit, which is quite essential, 

 not only to the health of the tree, but the perfection 

 of the crop. It is on the same principle that a gar- 

 dener, by repeatedly pinching off the ends of young 

 shoots, will grow a geranium into a low bushy mass 

 of branches and leaves, covering entirely the pot in 

 which it grovirs, while if left to itself the same plant 

 would have most likely formed a tall, branchless, 

 weak, straggling plant, requiring the support of a 

 stake. It is on the same principle too, of directing 

 tlie sap from one channel into another by pruning and 

 training, that we are enabled to make pyramidal pear 

 trees, and to produce all the other forms that neces- 

 sity or fancy has suggested. If the sap had not been 

 thrown into the wood buds at the base of the shoot, 

 (tig. 3,) we sliould have had a production the follow- 

 ing year like fig. 4 ; but by shorUnins^-in we produce 

 something like tig. 5. Now the dificrence between 

 cutting back a shoot and leaving it uncut makes just 

 the ditierence wo see between these two tigurcs. 



I5i;t sliurtening-in i.s not all that is required. If wo 

 continue to shorten the young shoots without cutting 



out some of the old, we will get a tree by and by like 

 a brush that the light can not penetrate. In such 

 productions as figure 5, the old shoot A, should be cut 

 out at the cross line at the base, and we have the 

 shoots B. and C, for next year's bearing, which are 

 shortent:d-in.* Then any of the main branches that 

 take the lead of the other should be shortened, in order 

 to maintain symmetry in the form of the head. 



Mr. Thomas says: "The most easy, uniform and 

 certain rule to follow, is to cut off, early in spring or 

 winter, one-third to one-half of all the shoots of the 

 previous summer's growth." This is not to be taken 

 literally. He means of course that each of last 

 year's shoots is to bo cut back one-half to one-third 

 its length. In the main this tnay be right, but some 

 discrimination must be used. Vigorous shoots might 

 be cut back one-third, while a weak, slender one, 

 if placed where we want a good bearing shoot for 

 next year, should be cut back to within a couple of 

 buds of its base, so in proportion with branches of 

 intermediate vigor. The cut should always be made 

 at a wood bud or a triple hud, one of which is a wood 

 bud. In this and similar latitudes, the latter end ol 

 February and beginning of ftlarch is the best time. 



" ll sli*iiild be Itiirne in raind that liic Pencil t»enrs (tnly 'tri 

 wood of tlie previous season'a growth ; und llie siinio siioni 

 only l>oars once, hence nil tlie parts of the tree llint (n-conic 

 destitute of young wood, become nt the sume lime bnrreii. 



Amalgamation. — A Texas paper tells a story of 

 a man who by engrafting the black on the white grape 

 succeeded in making "black, white and speckled," 

 grow on the same butich. 



