316 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



ous fruit-tree in California. A peach, tree of an 

 early variety, maturing three months from blooming, 

 may perfect its fruit and buds for the next year's 

 fruitage with an amount of moisture in the soil which 

 would not enable a late variety to reach good size and 

 juiciness four or five months from the bloom, nor 

 sustain strong bud growth for the next year. The 

 grower, then, with such a tree has poor fruit during 

 the current year and a scant crop or none the fol- 

 lowing year. It may cast its bloom the next year, 

 and then it will turn all the available moisture into 

 foliage and new wood, carrying fruit-buds, and fruit 

 again the year after, thus establishing a habit of 

 bearing on alternate years. If it is a variety of very 

 prolific habit, it may continue to bear each suc- 

 ceeding year smaller fruit until it fails of growth 

 enough to hold a fruit-bud. In its struggle to main- 

 tain its life against late summer and autumn evapo- 

 ration, it will lighten its burden by allowing some 

 of its branches to die back from the top. The roots 

 thus gaining relatively greater strength by the reduc- 

 tion of the upper branches, will be able to force out 

 a growth of shoots near the main forks, and a new 

 crown of foliage will appear at a lower level than be- 

 fore, but the old struggle begins again and proceeds 

 in the same way toward the same end, until, if the 

 situation is very dry, the tree finally dies, a prey 

 to vegetative debility, the first cause of all the trouble 

 being lack of moisture supply adequate to its uses. 

 In nature the species would either disappear or be 

 modified in such a way that its fruit would be no 



