500 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



degrees of southern latitude. During the 

 droughts and heats of summer, such borders 

 should have repeated waterings of diluted 

 liquid-manure ; and if the surface be mulched 

 with half-rotten dung, to exclude drought and 

 prevent excessive evaporation, so much the 

 better. The borders should neither be cropped 

 nor deeply dug; the surface, however, to the 

 depth of 3 or 4 inches, should be kept open by 

 repeated hoeings. Such may be considered the 

 proper conditions for the roots. 



Overcropping trees, be they ever so healthy, 

 exhausts the energy of the peach, shortens its 

 life, predisposes it to the attacks of insects, and 

 greatly lessens the value of the fruit both in 

 size and flavour. 



On the proper regulation of the branches 

 much of the successful culture of this tree de- 

 pends. Although much stress has been laid 

 upon certain systems of winter pruning and 

 training, as already noticed, these are as nothing 

 compared to the management of the young wood 

 during its growing season. This requires con- 

 stant examination as to thinning, stopping, and 

 laying in, so that there may be, as it were, a 

 regular equalisation of the sap throughout the 

 whole tree. Strong watery shoots should be 

 kept in check, else they act the part of robbers, 

 draining the sap from the profitable and less 

 luxuriant wood, and causing a superfluous action 

 of root ; and should they ever be cut out at the 

 winter pruning, they leave a preponderating 

 power in the root, leading to a necessity for 

 root-pruning — a circumstance greatly to be 

 avoided in the case of all stone-fruits. On the 

 judicious disbudding of the trees much of their 

 future welfare depends ; but this must not be 

 mistaken for what some people call summer 

 pruning, which deserves rather to be called 

 summer murdering ; for more peach trees are 

 killed by this than by almost all other ills be- 

 sides. Instead, therefore, of allowing the trees 

 to exhaust their energies in the production of 

 numberless shoots, to be, after they have well- 

 nigh pumped the whole sap out of the tree, cut 

 out and cast away, let disbudding commence 

 early in the season, and be carried on progres- 

 sively, so that by the end of May or beginning 

 of June, according to situation and season, at 

 which time the final thinning should take place, 

 no more young wood shall be left on the tree 

 than is sufficient for the next year. The judi- 

 cious peach-pruner will ever have before his eyes 

 the maxim, "to thin little and often;" for, as 

 Mr Errington has very properly remarked, 

 " Nature does not like to be taken by surprise ; 

 and by doing this with a light hand, she is able 

 in the interval to restore the reciprocal and ne- 

 cessary balance between the root and branches. 

 I make no doubt," he continues, " that gum is 

 often excited, certainly increased, by a whole- 

 sale robbery of this description, soon after the 

 tree has budded." Every shoot intended to be 

 retained should be carefully fastened to the 

 wall as it advances, and laid in between the 

 older branches ; and upon all occasions when 

 these are naked, the young shoots should be 

 laid in upon them, by which the action of the 

 sun upon the bare bark will be modified, and 



the young shoots better exposed to the light and 

 air. " All young and growing shoots," says the 

 authority last quoted, " except the weak ones, 

 and those on the lower portions of the tree, 

 should be stopped the moment the fruit begins 

 to change for ripening. By this time the true 

 bearing wood of the next year will be well 

 formed. All after this may be regarded as 

 superfluous, and tending to keep up a late action 

 in the root, which will be of no service to trees 

 in health, or of sufficient vigour. Stopping also 

 tends to concentrate the energies of the tree at 

 the very time that concentration is most re- 

 quired ; for at this period all that is wanted is 

 abundant elaboration preparatory to the ripen- 

 ing of the wood and the flavouring of the 

 fruit. However, at this juncture all the 

 lower and weaker parts of the tree should be 

 excepted. This is the commencement of their 

 harvest ; and this, with the stopping of the 

 luxuriant wood through the summer, will tend 

 more to equalise the sap than all the systems 

 of pruning which have ever possessed undue 

 importance." 



Disbudding — or summer pruning, as it is er- 

 roneously termed, because the operation should 

 be performed when the young shoots are little 

 more. than in their bud state — should commence 

 early, be performed by degrees, and completed 

 about midsummer. The first time, in going over 

 the trees, those shoots or buds termed foreright 

 or breastwood, and which generally project at 

 nearly right angles from the wall, should be 

 rubbed off when from 1 to 2 inches in length, 

 as should also be such as are produced between 

 the wall and branch. In about ten days after- 

 wards the trees should be again examined, and 

 those buds of the description noticed above, 

 which may have been overlooked or produced 

 since, should be removed, as should those which 

 appear too crowded, or produced in bundles too> 

 closely together, leaving only the most promising 

 and best placed of them. From this time a 

 weekly examination should take place, and due 

 regard should be paid to the thinning out of all 

 such as have hitherto been spared. At this time 

 the greatest attention will be required, because 

 now the selection is to be made of those required 

 to produce fruit next season, as well as to fill up 

 the wall and model the tree. The lowest placed 

 young shoots all over the tree should have a 

 preference amongst those to be retained, and 

 the others left should not be closer together at 

 any given time than from 4 to 5 inches, choosing 

 always the best formed and best placed; and all 

 leading shoots should be encouraged to their 

 full length, unless it may be desirable to cause 

 them to produce side shoots in thin parts of 

 the tree, in which case they may, if strong, be 

 pinched back. No two shoots, if possible, 

 should be allowed to proceed side by side from 

 any given point. Avoid the evil of laying in 

 too many shoots, and secure them to the wall 

 or upon the old and naked branches of the tree, 

 as they extend in growth. Throughout the 

 whole growing season all gross watery shoots 

 should be displaced ; and no good shoot, unless 

 there be sufficient evidence of its being required, 

 should be suffered to remain. The thinner the 



