AND ITS DISEASE. 79 



way I have pointed out, and for the reason as- 

 signed, and even in the application of remedial 

 agents, prevention of the disease would be more 

 benefit to the orchard than any blind empirical 

 course of the highest culture that could be 

 adopted. 



The large peach-growers, most of whom are on 

 the healthy side of the peach-dividing line between 

 the North and South, are exempt from the evils 

 referred to, and they have not adopted this course 

 of shortening in to any extent, leaving the orchard 

 after the proper heading, pretty much to its natu- 

 ral growth, attending rather to the necessary thin- 

 ning out of all intruding sprouts, and removing 

 dead and dying branches, leaving the tree as de- 

 scribed by one of our distinguished Pomologists, 

 "when in fruit with bending slender branches in 

 graceful curves, so as to open the spreading heads 

 and let in the sun and air to color up the fruit, 

 all through the middle of the tree as well as the 

 outside." "This is the plan," he further observes, 

 "which is found to work much better than head- 

 ing the tree in." As this mode, it seems, has be- 

 come almost a universal system and has worked 

 well, and having its convenience, it will be contin- 

 ued there with large peach growers, while the 

 heading-in system will be practised North among 

 amateurs, gardeners and small producers. It is 

 evident that a tree judiciously cut in, and the fruit 

 thinned in years of overbearing, will produce fruit 



