54 



FRUIT TREES. 



yards, tlien tlie diameter should be two yards at its 

 widest part. 



In soils of medium fertility, trees of this form and 

 size are planted ten or eleven feet apart, so that the 

 light may act equally upon their entire circumference. 



Young trees are not submitted to their first pruning 

 until the second year after they have been planted. 

 If performed earlier, the pruning takes away too many 

 of the branches, and the quantity of leaves that they 

 should develop is too much diminished. As it is the 

 leaves which cause the roots to extend themselves, 

 these are less developed, and the growth of buds, 

 which the early pruning was intended to promote, will 

 be feeble, poor, and insufficient to form a foundation 

 for the wood-branches of the tree. When the pruning 

 is not performed until the following year, the tree forms 

 new roots, and when the greater part of the branches 

 come to be pruned away, the sap which the roots now 

 supply in great abundance, reacts with force upon the 

 buds that are reserved upon the tree, and a greater 

 length of wood is obtained, during a single summer, 

 than would be obtained in two years by the former 

 method. Time is gained, and the tree is in a more 

 favourable condition for giving the desired direction 

 and growth to the wood. Nevertheless, as the roots of 

 young trees are more or less damaged by deplantation, 

 it is necessary to cut away a portion of the wood in 

 order to re-establish a proper equilibrium with the 

 roots. The suppression of a third of the length of the 

 most vigorous branches will generally be sufficient. 



This rule applies to all fruit trees, except peaches, of 



