266 



THE PEACH. 



turnip should ever be grown, and that pays best to be turned under 

 by a very shallow plowing of, say, two inches deep. On rich, deep 

 prairie soils, it is best not to stir the ground after midsummer. 



Pruning. The fruit being borne only on wood of 

 the preceding year, one of the great objects in pruning, 

 is to keep all parts of the tree furnished with a regular 

 and constant succession of annual bearing shoots. P. 

 Barry, in his " Fruit Garden," has the following, so cor- 

 rectly descriptive of the mode, that we adopt it, together 

 with a cut illustrative of buds, on which C. D. E. are 

 fruit buds, F. G. H. leaf buds, /. double buds, (7. triple 

 buds ; the two side buds being fruit buds, and the centre 

 one a leaf bud. By referring to the branch, it will be 

 seen that it is furnished with a certain number of wood 

 buds and fruit buds. At the base, there are always one 

 or more wood buds. 



Now, if that shoot were not pruned, all the fruit buds 

 on it would produce fruit, one, two, or three of the 

 wood buds at the top would make new shoots ; these 

 would necessarily be very weak, in consequence of the 

 number of fruit below them. At the end of the season 

 there would be a long, vacant space, entirely destitute of a 

 young shoot or a living bud. This is the way that the inte- 

 rior and lower parts of treesbecome so soon degarnished. 



But when that shoot is shortened, we will say one half, 

 | D the sap is retained in its lower parts, one half of the 

 fruit buds are removed, and the consequence is, that 

 large and fine fruits are obtained from those remaining : 

 young vigorous shoots are produced from the lower 

 buds to bear next year, and 

 take the place of those which 

 have already borne. In this 

 way regular uniform crops of 

 large and fine fruit are ob- 

 tained, and a constant succes- 

 sion of young shoots is kept up. 



To form the head of a stand- 

 ard Peach Tree. We will 

 suppose it the intention to 

 form a standard tree, with a 

 trunk two feet in height, and a 



., , .1 tree, with a stem two let 



round, Open, and symmetrical and a round, open head. 



head, like figure. We take 

 a yearling tree and cut it back to within two feet and a half of the 



