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This method of pruning being carried out year after year, the 
small wohnds heal readily. Large limbs have not to be eut back 
so often, thereby endangering the life of the plant, owing to the 
part drying up or decaying, and the sap poisoning the other parts 
of the tree and favouring the gumming, one of the worst diseases 
of stone-fruit trees. 
After seven or eight years the growth of the main branches 
will slacken, and the pruning will consist mainly of the cutting out 
the twigs that bore fruit the previous year; (2) thinning out the 
twigs that will bear the following year; (3) cutting back half to 
two eyes and trimming the longer twigs of the remainder. The 
latter will depend on the location of the fruit buds. In shy-bearing 
varieties, where the fruit buds are towards the extremity of the 
twigs, the eutting back is omitted. In the case of heavy bearers like 
Early Crawford, Foster, Elberta, that have plenty of fruit buds all 
along the twigs, there will still be plenty left after cutting back. Do 
likewise with the nectarine and the almond. 
Very vigorous trees are sometimes shy bearers, and can be in- 
duced to bear by continued summer pruning, and occasionally an 
autumn root pruning. In a good season, when fruit sets well, 
thinning out when about the size of a marble, and before the kernel 
has hardened, will prevent breakages owing to overloading, and also 
ease the tree and enable the remainder of the fruit to develop to 
larger size. 
PRUNING THE ALMOND. 
Almond trees require very little pruning after they are once 
shaped. The first few years the young tree is trained on the prin- 
ciples laid down when dealing with the formation of a low-standard 
or “vase”-shaped trees. Some varieties have a weeping-willow habit 
of growth, and all branches pointing downwards should be cut to 
insure the symmetry of the tree. After the third or fourth year the 
pruning will simply consist in cutting dead wood, cross and broken 
branches, and the shoots pointing downwards, which might inter- 
fere with horse cultivation. When three or more shoots grow from 
the fork of a limb, the number should, by pruning, be reduced to 
only two. 
The almond earries its fruit on laterals growing on new as well 
as on old branches, and, unlike those of the peach, the laterals of 
the almond do not die back annually, but remain productive for 
several seasons; they should not, therefore, be cut back as in the case 
of the twigs of the peach that have just borne fruit. 
PRUNING THE PLUMS AND PRUNES. 
Low training is to be recommended for the plums and prunes, 
and cutting back severely, during the first three years, the long 
shoots so as to shape the tree, form a stocky and erect growth, and 
