Io8 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING. 



metrical, evenly distributed heads shown in Fig. 153. An 

 important advantage of thus pruning the peach will be the 

 thinning-out of the fruit-buds ; and while the tree will bear 

 perhaps only one-third or one-quarter the number of speci- 

 mens, they will be so much larger as to give as many bush- 

 els, while the quality will be incomparably superior. 



An objection is made that too much labor is required for 

 this operation. By the use of a good pair of pruning-shears, 

 however, it may be done with great expedition, and half a 

 dozen trees finished in the same time that would be required 

 for a single tree in using the knife. 



Another mode, more rapidly performed, and answering 



Fig. 154. FIG. 155. 



Heading-back of the Peach, 



nearly the same purpose, is to cut off two or three years' 

 growth at a time, from all the longer branches, taking care to 

 leave a sufficiency of young wood, and always cutting back to 

 a fork, so as not to make a dead stub. 



In cases where the pruning has been neglected on young 

 trees, until they have attained several years of age, and the 

 shoots have just begun to die out in the centre, a still more 

 wholesale kind of pruning may be adopted. Three or four 

 feet may be taken off, in cases of necessity, at a single stroke, 

 and if judiciously performed, will convert the broad head 

 which is beginning to become enfeebled, into a smaller, neat, 



