458 



PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 



is not vinegar, and no attempt should be made to dis- 

 pose of any vinegar until it is clear and thoroughly 

 made. Cheap instruments for testing the comparative 

 strength of vinegar can be had, and should be used by 

 every one who expects to market vinegar. 



If all this seems to be too much trouble and expense. 



the manufacture of vinegar had better not be attempted, 

 but the apples sold to some one in the business regularly. 

 Poorly made cider-vinegar not only injures the reputa- 

 tion of the maker, but hurts the sale of all cider- 

 vinegar ; it cannot prove really profitable to anyone con- 

 nected with it. 



PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 



PROFESSOR BAILEY'S article on peach cul- 

 ture, with particular reference to Michigan 

 practices (March American Garden), is a 

 practical one, and is good enough, with 

 some modifications, for all this great country of ours. 

 There is no point in horticulture that I have given 

 so close attention since I came to California as the 

 proper shape and pruning of the peach tree. 



The system practiced here by the very best growers 

 is very similar to that which Professor Bailey says is 

 best in Michigan. We call it the wine-glass or vase- 

 form here in California. About the only difference in 

 the two systems is that here in our superlatively rich 

 soils and long growing season we are forced to cut back 

 quite severely each winter for the first five years, which 

 is done mainly to keep the young tree in shape and with- 

 in bounds, and to strengthen the base of the main 

 branches. Some genuine experts in peach growing even 

 recommend midsummer cutting back in the extra deep, 

 rich soils of the hot interior valleys, and I am inclined 

 to think the practice is right. 



The illustrations of trees in the model Michigan or- 

 chards are very nearly perfect for California, except that 

 the trees are too tall, and there are not twigs and foliage 

 enough near the base of the main branches. This last 

 is a most serious fault. This is a fault in Michigan, and 

 would be ten times as faulty in this hot, dry climate of 

 California. Such branches should be clothed with spurs 

 and leaves from the main bifurcations up. This cannot 

 be had unless the uppermost sprays of the trees are kept 

 constantly thinned out. The large tree at the right, on 

 page 131, has something of this, but not nearly enough. 

 In that picture generally there is too great a stretch of 

 bare branches, and they are too high. 



About Petaluma, Sonoma county, California, one can 

 see the most disastrous training of the peach — many trees 

 eight and nine feet to the first green leaf, and the same 

 is true all over California. But our expert fruit-grow- 

 ers do not grow such trees, especially peach trees. They 

 are careful in forming, shaping, pruning and thinning 

 them, and they are the men who get the coin from their 

 trees. 



In my mind s eye, the model peach orchard would be 

 that in which the trees were twelve feet apart each way, 

 and the trees never allowed to reach more than eight 

 feet in height and seven feet in greatest diameter of 

 top, with heads branching out within six to twelve inches 

 of the ground ; and then every inch of them should be 

 clothed with foliage and fruit to their summits. They 

 should be cultivated, fertilized (if they need it ; here 

 they generally do not), thinned and pruned on the most 

 radical intensive system. Such a model orchard should 

 be as thrifty, vigorous and fruitful when thirty or forty 

 or more years old as it was at five years. But a peach 

 or any other fruit tree cannot grow good fruit for any 

 length of time, if fruit and foliage are crowded together 

 at the extreme end of a branch without any foliage for 

 six or nine feet ; nor can the little bunch of crowded fol- 

 iage on the end of such branches supply the necessary 

 strength of branch, stem and root sufficient to keep up 

 vigor and strength. 



Why will not the same system which I have given for 

 the peach apply to the apple and other fruits and give 

 equally desirable results ? I think that it will, with some 

 unimportant modifications to suit the species. Apple 

 trees in the prairie states are in every way the best 

 when trained with low heads, and then given no prun- 

 ing whatever for the first fifteen years in orchard. 



Sonoma Coini/y, California . D. B. Wier. 



