THE HARDY FKTJIT GARDEN. 



181 



tips of the skoots being cut off, and the major por- 

 tion of those left to produce fruits and succession 

 shoots. As the trees enlarge in size, and occupy- 

 most of the space allotted to them, more and yet 

 more old and semi-exhausted wood will he primed 

 out at the winter pruning. This operation should 

 he performed so soon as the fruit is gathered, for the 

 douhle purpose of enabling the wounds to heal be- 

 fore winter, and afford more light and air to have 

 free access to the wood left. 



Returning for a moment to our newly-planted 

 tree, it will probably be found in full flower in 

 March, with wood-buds also showing regularly from 

 base to summit of the shoots. If not more than a 

 foot or two in length, and it is breaking right back 

 to the base, the shoots may have any imperfect or 

 frost-bitten ends cut off, and be trained into form, 

 the pruning being a mere overhauling, and transfer- 

 ring, now the soil has subsided, from the stakes to 

 the solid wall. Permanent trees will probably need 

 even less winter pruning. By the month of March 

 the frost will have mostly done its worst, and 

 the pruning consists very much in a neat clear- 

 ance of the winter injuries and wreckage. Of 

 course, very much depends on how well or ill the 

 summer pruning had been attended to. If that had 

 been perfect, and the winter genial, no winter nor 

 spring — that is, deciduous — pruning of the Peach 

 should be necessary. 



Summer pruning, unlike the winter pruning, 

 is less a single act than a series of processes or 

 " little goes," throughout the season, from May to 

 November. Some even begin earlier than May, but 

 it is well to allow the whole of the wood-buds 

 on the Peach and Nectarine, in the open air, to break 

 and make a good start before beginning summer 

 pruning. The process is known by various names, 

 such as disbudding, pinching, and stopping. 



Stopping and pinching mean the same thing in 

 fact, with a difference in regard to time. Pinching, 

 not needing a knife, takes place earlier than stopping. 

 Unless for the more rapid or perfect forming of 

 young trees, or furnishing with new and vigorous 

 wood dilapidated old ones, the pinching of Peach- 

 shoots in the open air is not to be recommended. 



There is also another period when pinching may 

 be resorted to without injury to the trees, and with 

 positive benefit to the size and flavour of the 

 fruit, and that is, to pinch the end of the fruiting 

 branch a month or so before the fruit ripens. But 

 to pinch in June or July is more likely to result 

 in a crop of succulent shoots, to furnish food for 

 the flrst frosts, instead of crops of luscious Peaches 

 for the cultivator. Summer pruning consists in 

 the removal of sJl superfluous shoots, laterals, &c., 

 throughout the season, leaving nothing to ripen 



that will not yield fruit, or shoots where the latter 

 are needed. 



Pinching is also practised for another purpose — the 

 development of fruit-spurs. Instead of disbudding in 

 the usual way, pinch out the wood-shoot early in 

 the season, leaving two leaves at its base. These 

 pinched-back shootlets wUl mostly develop a new 

 fruit-spur before the autumn. For particulars of all 

 this see The Peach and Nectarine under Glass. ' 



The common fan, or Seymour's, system of training 

 the Peach in the open air has never been bettered. 



None of the systems of fancy training so common 

 on the Continent are suitable for our climate, and if 

 anything approaching to cordons are tried, the U or 

 such simple forms are likely to prove the more 

 successful. Whatever mode of training is adopted, 

 the object should be to clothe the wall as speedily 

 as possible without allowing the strength of the 

 trees to run unduly into their heads. A reserve 

 foi^ce of sap, and supply of succession shoots, should 

 always be reserved near to the base of the trees. 

 This is the result of skilful pruning as well as of 

 good training. 



Root-pruning. — For full-sized Peaches in the 

 open air this is comparatively seldom needful. The 

 modus operandi has already been described with suffi- 

 cient exactness. In low-lying localities and climates 

 unsuitable for the Peach, success may often be com- 

 manded by mound-planting, and pruning the roots 

 or lifting the Peaches every year, or biennially. If 

 carefully performed early in October, the trees will 

 receive a wholesome check, but not sufficiently 

 violent to hinder them bearing fruit the following 

 season. Peach-trees, especially when thus treated, 

 produce quantities of fibrous roots that enable them 

 to re-establish themselves with great rapidity after 

 the disturbance of root-pruning, or after lifting. 

 Peach-trees, however, are lifted at times to en- 

 courage as well as to check growth. Debilitated 

 by age, over-cropping, or unskilful treatment, the 

 roots may be lifted, the old soil of the border re- 

 moved, and fresh compost substituted for it, the 

 roots laid in or on the fresh soil, and lifted nearer 

 to the surface, and by such simple expedients the 

 life of many a Peach-tree has been saved, its youth 

 renewed, and its last days rendered more fruitful 

 and profitable than its first. 



One caution needs to be given here, and that is 

 against the use of leaf-mould in these processes. 

 Thousands of Peach-trees have been wrecked by the 

 introduction of leaf-mould against the roots. Peach- 

 roots need no such aids to growth, while the leaf- 

 mould is almost sure to develop a fuU crop of 

 fungus, to the contamina,tion of the soil, and the 

 poisoning of the roots. Leaf-mould should be 



