PEACH AND THE PEAR. 49 



of the poorest, knottiest little peaches it had ever 

 yielded before, or has ever yielded since. The treat- 

 ment did harm to that crop and no good to those that 

 came afterwards. The peach is an enigma, and its 

 treatment has not yet been reduced to an exact science, 

 by any means. Probably the majority of growers do 

 their trimming after the picking season is over ; then 

 they take out all dead wood, broken limbs and interfer- 

 ing cross-limbs, and cut off all suckers, and this is the 

 sum of their pruning. Others, again, trim in the winter 

 and spring, for the benefit of the tree, and some later in 

 summer, to force fruiting ; others trim whenever their 

 knives are sharp, and they see an indication of suckers ; 

 this last method is good anyhow. I prefer to snug up 

 the orchard after the picking season ; any radical 

 trimming, if necessary, I do in the latter part of the 

 winter, and in early spring, and if I want to cut back 

 new wood, to do it later in the spring. As to fancy 

 pruning and training, they are not practised in practical 

 peach-culture on the peninsula, but at the same time it 

 is not right to leave the tree altogether without 

 pruning, for the budded peach, in particular, requires 

 care and cultivation, and in this care and cultivation, 

 judicious pruning has its share. Hand-thinning of the 

 fruit is not practised on the peninsula — nature accom- 

 plishes all that in the June drop. 



