THE PEACH AND .NECTARINE UNDER GLASS. 



Ill 



cular part of the tree the following year, when they 

 are pruned to a , triple bud. The summer manage- 

 ment is equally simple. When ready for disbudding 

 a promising break is left near to the base, to be tied 

 in parallel with the fruit-bearing wood which it is 

 intended to replace after the Peaches are gathered. 

 All surplus breaks, with the exception of those from 

 the nodes where the fruit is intended to remain, are 

 then removed : but the latter are pinched in close to 

 secure foliage unless the tree is likely to become 

 crowded, in which case they also are gradually re- 

 moved. The leading shoots grow on until the fruit 

 commences the last swell- 

 ing for ripening ; the 

 points are then pinched 

 out, unless they are main 

 leaders, to throw size into 

 the fruit. When trees of 

 this kind are properly 

 formed, a person of only 

 moderate experience can 

 manage them, as it is sim- 

 ply necessary to secure a 

 good break from the bot- 

 tom of every fruiting shoot, 

 and perhaps one also from the 

 centre of extra strong growths. 



Restriction Training. — 



Although extension training has 

 resulted in the production of 

 many of the finest old trees in 

 the kingdom, and many gar- 

 deners have found it equally 

 applicable to all other kinds 

 of fruit-trees, there are others 

 who still remain faithful to 

 the system so ably, and it 

 may not be too much to say, unfortunately, pro- 

 pounded and illustrated by Dr. Lindley and Robert 

 Thompson. As if the annual cutting back in the 

 nursery were not enough, all growers of stone- 

 fruit trees were taught to continue the use of 

 the knife not only to give the thrice- cut-backs "a 

 fair start," but to continue the process by cutting 

 away one-half, and in some cases two-thirds, of every 

 shoot at the winter pruning, rendering the formation 

 of a tree, say twenty feet by twelve, the work of 

 half a lifetime. But why a tree should be paralysed 

 by having at least one-half of its annual growth cut 

 away at the winter pruning is a mystery to many, 

 the more so as trees well furnished with ripe wood 

 are capable of fulfilling all the conditions that the 

 most fastidious can desire. As the restrictive or 

 repressive mode of pruning simply means shorten- 

 ing every young shoot back to a wood-bud, the 



Fig-. 16.— Eestrictive Pruning. 



Fig. 17.— The Two Systems. 



diagram, Fig. 16, will convey all that it is needful to 

 say for or against the system. It must not, how- 

 ever, be inferred by the uninitiated that the quality 

 or size of the fruit is deteriorated, as this is not the 

 case. It is the useless loss of time in covering the 

 allotted space, and as a consequence the unnecessary 

 sacrifice of a quantity of Peaches, that is at fault. 



In Fig. 16, "b and c represent fruit-bearing 

 shoots, which, unless they are leaders, would be cut 

 away after the Peaches are gathered to make room 

 for the successions cl and e ; " but why the latter 

 should be shortened back to one-third their length, 

 more or less, according to 

 the position of a wood or 

 triple bud, modern pruners 

 are at a loss to understand. 



In Fig. 17, the branch d 

 has produced two mode- 

 rately strong shoots, each 

 of them capable of bear- 

 ing fruit. The extension 

 pruner would leave them 

 intact : the restriction 

 pruner will shorten one 

 back to a wood-bud at a, and 

 cut the other away at c, leaving 

 three clusters of flower-buds to 

 bear fruit, and two wood-buds, 

 that at b to produce a shoot for 

 extension. 



Seymour's System. — 



Then, again, there is Seymour's 

 system, which, like the many 

 forms in favour with the French, 

 leads by a most complicated mode 

 of cutting and training to the 

 formation of handsome geome- 

 trical trees, more remarkable for their appearance 

 than their fruit. Seymour's system necessitates having 

 a vertical leader from which all the side shoots start 

 with mathematical precision, as in Fig. 18. Every 

 bud is rubbed off the lower sides of these shoots, and 

 the bearing wood is laid in from the upper sides. 

 All goes well until accident or gumming causes one 

 or more of the main shoots, or it may be a portion 

 of the leader, to die off, and the tree is no longer 

 pleasing to look upon. Should any reader wish to 

 adopt this tedious system, he must commence with 

 a maiden tree, cut it down to three eyes, train up 

 a leader and one side shoot each way. The follow- 

 ing year the leader must be again shortened to three 

 eyes, when a second pair of side shoots will be 

 trained nine inches above the first pair, and so on 

 until the wall or trellis is covered, if such a remote 

 event is ever accomplished. When the first pair of 



