LONGEVITY OF THE PEACH 271 



are instances in the earliest-settled places in the State, where peach 

 trees* above fifty years old are still vigorous and productive. Some 

 trees have, in fact, gone along in thrift until they have a bark below 

 which looks like that of a forest tree, and a framework of main 

 branches sound and stalwart throughout because they have never 

 been allowed to sunburn until protected by their own roughness, 

 and have never been pruned with an axe, and never lost a limb 

 nor had a wound into which decay could penetrate and descend to 

 the root. When the peach has a fair chance in its aerial parts and 

 is in a soil which favors health of the roots, it shows itself to be 

 very long lived in California. Where trees break to pieces 

 and show decay wounds, they are in bad places and have suffered 

 through natural stress or have been weakened by cultural errors. 



In favorable soils the peach is stronger and longer lived in 

 the root than in the top, and sometimes triumphs over neglect by 

 discarding its old, wind-broken, sun-burned and bark-bound 

 branches, and forms a new head of its own. Such renewal is some- 

 times very rapid. In the interior valley new shoots on a cut-back 

 Muir tree have grown twelve feet in one season, with a thickness 

 of one and one-half inches at the base. Such shoots will bear the 

 following summer. It is through this disposition to renewal of 

 good wood that the intelligent system of pruning which is now 

 prevalent, ministers to the longevity as well as the profitability of 

 the tree, aiding it to constantly renew its youth by restraining its 

 exuberance, and at the same time furnishing it sound new wood 

 on which to grow its fruits and foliage. But while these are facts, 

 there is some difference of opinion as to the point at which an old 

 tree becomes less valuable than a young one. Along the Sacra- 

 mento River some count about a dozen good crops as the limit, and 

 thus replace the trees when about fifteen years of age. This is a 

 point which may vary greatly, according to local conditions. 



Early Productiveness. Quite as important as the longevity of 

 the peach tree are the facts of its rapid growth and early produc- 

 tiveness. It is the first of our fruit trees to attain size and yield 

 a profitable crop. In localities best suited to its growth it will 

 mature some fruit the second summer in the orchard if the small 

 shoots are not pruned away from the main branches, and during 

 the third summer averages of forty to fifty pounds per tree have 

 been secured from considerable acreages. These facts are stated 

 to show what the peach of good variety may do in a good situation 

 and soil and with the best of care. Of course they are not to be 

 taken as average results, although greater than those given are 

 sometimes attained. For example, on the rich, alluvial land near 

 Visalia, an Admiral Dewey yearling tree planted in March, 1904, 

 had in October, 1905, attained these dimensions: near the ground 

 the trunk was eleven and three-quarter inches in circumference, 



