The Peach, 93 



If the soil is fertile and kept well cultivated, the trees will 

 usually be large enough in the northern states to bud by the 

 close of summer. In the south, they may be budded in June. 

 The peach is sometimes worked upon plum stocks, 

 though the practice is not now regarded with much favor. 

 The plum stock slightly enfeebles the growth and also 

 lessens damage from the peach borer (121), Dwarf peach 

 trees are produced by budding on the Mirabelle, a diminu- 

 tive variety of the plum, 



116. Soil. The peach is very often grown on sandy soil, 

 and with a favorable climate, trees thus grown succeed and 

 fruit well for a time; but they do not, as a rule, endure so 

 long as when grown on fertile and well-drained clay loams. 

 1 1 1. Orchard planting:. The peach may be successfully 

 transplanted to the orchard the spring after the insertion 

 of the bud, but trees two years old from the bud, 

 are as a rule, more satisfactory than younger 

 ones. The trees may be planted 15 to 20 feet 

 apart. The branches are commonly cut back to 

 within one bud of the trunk, and the top is con- 

 * siderably shortened (Fig. 30). 



118. Pruning;. Since the peach bears on wood 

 of the preceding season's growth, that pruning 

 should be practiced which tends to develop abun- 

 dance of new wood near the trunk. Neglected 

 trees usually develop long, slender branches 

 with little new wood, which is produced at the 

 extremities, and the fruit on these tends con- 

 ^'*- ^-^ stantly to split down the branches. In many 

 orchards the new growth is annually cut back from one-half 

 to one-third its length in early spring, and the center of the 



> Young peach tree pruned, ready for planting in orchard, (From Bailey'a 

 "Pruning Book.") 



