148 WHYTOCK—THE CULTIVATION OF 
the same walls, all had died out. I may mention this was a 
warm district, soil inclined to be light, on a limestone bottom. 
It is not the cold severity of our winters that is against our 
growing peaches in the open in the North, it is the sunlessness 
and often wetness of our climate that is the obstacle. This is 
proved by the very large peach-orchards that exist both in the 
United States and Canada. In these countries the summers are 
very hot, so that the wood is ripened as hard as can be, and is 
therefore not injured by the winter’s frosts many degrees below 
zero. The ripening of the wood of our peach-tree is the important 
thing we have to look to in cultivating peach-trees, and here I 
wish to note observations I have made—and I have heard others 
say they have observed the same—in relation to ripening the 
wood of peach-trees in a glass case without any fire-heat. 
It has been my experience that where the wood of the peach- 
trees is ripened in a case without fire-heat, the trees should not 
be pruned the same as trees ripened under glass with fire-heat. 
It is necessary to prune the trees in a case early in January 
‘because the buds soon after become too prominent for the 
necessary washing and tying. Now, we frequently have some 
of our very coldest weather early in February. Well, if you 
shorten back the leading shoots in your peach-trees, in the way 
usually done in heated houses, and a hard frost comes afterwards, 
it will kill back a considerable portion of the already pruned or 
wounded shoot, but the frost will not affect the shoots not 
shortened. From that I gather that the imperfectly ripened 
wood in a cold case will not stand hard frosts ifcut. I therefore 
make it a point to cut back the wood as little as possible in a 
cold case, 
I have seen peach-trees in a cold case grown on the spur- 
system, but I would not adopt it. The fruit is much smaller, 
although I believe you get a better set of fruit by the spur- 
system, probably because you. have a much larger quantity of 
flower. 
The peach and nectarine lend themselves to very early forcing. 
Ripe fruit can be had from the beginning of May until the end 
of October. Mr. Chalis, a gardener of forty years standing at 
Wilton, wrote recently in a gardening paper that the season of 
ripe peaches might be extended to the beginning of December 
