FRUIT-TREES IN POTS. 



257 



of them are already in flower we transfer them to a shed for the 

 one night whilst the house is in smoking, for we regard it as a 

 thing imperative to have a good smoke as soon as the Peaches 

 are set, in order to keep the greenfly out of the young growth 

 coming. 



The thinning of the fruit is rather an anxious matter, for at this 

 time by far the greater number of the trees will be found to have 

 set five or six times as much fruit as they can carry. We go over 

 the trees roughly as soon as ever the blossom drops and take out 

 about two-thirds, and leave the final thinning until " stoning " is 

 well over. Then it is that one wants one's enemy to come for a 

 day's work, so heartrending is it to cut out such a number of nice 

 fruits ; and though we resolve every year to be less lenient than 

 the last, yet somehow we always find we leave too many on the 

 trees. Probably the better plan would be to resolve beforehand 

 how many each tree should be allowed, and stick to the resolve 

 if possible. The Plums are almost as difficult to thin as are the 

 Peaches. The Pears are much easier ; for one thing they set less 

 freely, and hanging, as they generally do, in clusters, it is simple 

 rule of thumb to cut out all but one fruit in each if the clusters 

 are thick upon the tree, or to leave two each if the clusters are 

 few and far between. I prefer to leave the fruit at the base of 

 the bloom-cluster rather than at the apex. Pears should not 

 be rough-thinned at all, but done once only after they have 

 " pipped." 



We now begin to prune the Peaches and Nectarines, cutting 

 out all unfruitful wood not wanted for the extension of the tree, 

 painting each cut as we go with plain shellac dissolved in 

 spirit of wine ; and though April may seem a strange time to 

 prune, yet it is in many ways convenient, and we have never 

 observed any bleeding or other ill effects to follow. This is the 

 pruning of last year's wood. Later, as the young shoots grow, 

 as soon as they have developed eight good leaves we pinch them 

 back to five, and it is important that this be done whilst the part 

 pinched off is quite soft and immature, as then it only checks 

 the shoot enough to throw all the buds into bloom-buds except 

 the last one, w T hich soon again takes up the growing, and will 

 need in its turn to be similarly pinched back later on. If by 

 any oversight the pinching back of a shoot is not done till the 

 wood is fairly developed and hard, we almost invariably find that 



