106 FRUIT GAKDExV. 



that is required to remedy sickly and unfruitful trees- 

 is to bring up their roots within five or six inches of 

 the surface. In England, nothing is a greater obstacle 

 to success in peach culture than trenching the borders, 

 and cropping them heavily with culinary vegetables. 



The fruit of the peach is produced on the twiggy 

 shoots of the preceding year. If these be too luxuriant, 

 they yield nothing but leaves ; and if too weak, they 

 are incapable of maturing the fruit. To furnish these, 

 then, in sufficient abundance, and of requisite strength, 

 is the great object of peach-training and .pruning. All 

 twiggy trees naturally fall into the fan form ; and, ac- 

 cordingly, this has generally been adopted in the cul- 

 ture of peaches. 



We shall first, therefore, notice the old English me- 

 thod, and then briefly the French, and other new modes 

 of training. 



The old fan form is very nearly that already given 

 (supra) as a specimen of fan-training for twiggy trees. 

 The young tree is often procured when it has been 

 trained for two or three years in the nursery, but it is 

 generally better to commence with a maiden plant, that 

 is, in the first year after it has been budded. It is 

 then headed down to five or six buds, and in the fol- 

 lowing summer two to four shoots, according to the 

 vigor of the plant, are trained in; the laterals also be- 

 ing thinned out, and properly nailed to the walls. 

 Suppose there be four branches ; in the subsequent 

 winter the two central ones are shortened back to pro- 

 duce others, and the inferior ones are laid in nearly at 

 full length. In the following season additional shoots 

 are sent forth ; and the process is repeated till eight or 

 ten principal limbs or mother branches be obtained. 



