154 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



furnisli the tree without having recourse to the undesir- 

 able practice of first allowing a few very strong leaders 

 to monopolise the sap, and then to cut them down at 

 the winter pruning. In this way much time is gained 

 in covering a wall or trellis with bearing wood. 



A young tree thus managed on what may be termed 

 a mean between the extension and the cutting-hard-back 

 systems, produces a comparatively large well-furnished 

 tree the autumn after it is planted, and one which 

 requires very little winter pruning before starting it 

 into another year's growth — when the same principle 

 should be applied, especially to the extremities of the 

 tree. All the winter pruning that is necessary, is 

 simply to shorten back the young growths to thoroughly- 

 ripened wood, and to remove any lateral growths, the 

 presence of which would crowd the tree. There is, how- 

 ever, comparatively little difficulty in ripening the wood 

 of young peaches under glass with the command of fire- 

 heat. By the second autumn after planting, the trees 

 wUl cover the trellis to a very considerable extent. 



After the trees have grown and covered the space 

 allotted to each, the system of pruning must be directed 

 so as to continually keep the whole tree regularly sup- 

 plied with young fruit-bearing wood. With a view to 

 this, of course the yearly removal of old wood in winter, 

 and the laying in of a corresponding amount of young 

 wood in summer, must be carefully attended to. 

 Fig. 16 gives an idea of what I mean by this, and 

 will serve to Olustrate the pruning out of old wood 

 and laying in the new. The shoots represented by 

 the solid lines are those which bore fruit last summer, 

 and those shown by the dotted lines, growing from the 

 sbase of the fruit-bearing wood, are those laid in in 



