Boo. . Peach Planting. 
The so-called “peach-almond” has been used to some 
extent. It is a fruit having the pit of a peach but the pericarp 
of an almond, that is tough and tasteless and disposed to split 
like an almond hull. Early in the fifties a chance hybrid of this 
sort appeared in the nursery of W. B. West, of Stockton, and its 
pits were used for nursery seedlings which, when budded to the 
peach, produced gocd trees. Trees bearing the peach-almond 
are found here and there over the State. Mr. Burbank has pro- 
duced a hybrid of the Wager peach and the Languedoc almond. 
Distance in Orchard.—Distance observed in planting peach 
orchards differs greatly, according to the views of different 
growers. Regarding the peach as a catch crop to plant be- 
tween apricot, pear, cherry, walnut, fig or other slower-grow- 
ing, larger trees, the trees may be set comparatively close; that 
is, with the latter trees at thirty to forty feet, and alternate rows 
of peach planted quincunx, and to be removed at the end of ten 
to fifteen years. If the peach is to have the ground to itself, 
some planters plant at eighteen feet in equilateral triangles, or 
twenty to twenty-four feet on the squares, the present tendency 
with the peach, as with other trees, being to give more room 
than was the custom a few years ago. 
Age of Trees—lIn planting peach orchards yearling trees 
are generally used, although far more are planted in dor- 
mant bud than of any other kind of fruit trees. The reason for 
this is easily found in the disposition of the peach to make a 
tree the first year from the bud. It springs almost at once into 
a full outfit of laterals. Some growers employ this disposition 
to form a head the first year in the nursery. When the bud has 
grown out eighteen inches, pinch it off at the top and force out 
laterals, which make long growth the same season. When 
planted out in orchard the following winter, cut back to fen or 
twelve inches. In this any one can get a yearling with the equiv- 
alent of a two-year-old head on it. The common practise is, 
however, to let the growth from the bud proceed as it chooses, 
and when the yearling is set in orchard, cut back to a single 
bud, laterals which are desired to form the head and removing 
others. The development of form from a vearling branched in 
the nursery is illustrated in chapter on pruning. 
Recently preference has arisen for smaller trees for trans- 
planting and, especially in the foot-hills, June buds, described 
in the chapter on propagation, are largely employed. 
Planting Dormant Buds—The chapter on planting describes 
the planting of yearling trees. The lifting of dormant buds 
from the home nursery and planting in orchard is described by 
P. W. Butler, of Placer County, as follows:— 
_ Have the ground prepared and stakes placed in position in the orchard 
in early February, if possible, and begin the planting at once, while the trees 
