THE i>EACH. 
595 
while we have secured against tie prevalent evb, an over-crop, 
we have also provided for the 
full nourishment of the present 
year’s fruit, and induced a sup- 
ply of fruit-bearing shoots 
throughout the tree, for the next 
o 
season. 
A peach tree pruned by the shorten - 
ing-in mode. 
This course of pruning is fol- 
lowed regularly, every year, for 
the whole life of the tree. It is 
done much more rapidly than 
one would suppose; the pruned 
wounds are too small to cause 
any gum to flow ; and it is done 
at the close of winter, when labour is worth least to the culti- 
vator. 
The appearance of a tree pruned in this way, -after many 
years of bearing, is a very striking contrast to that of the poor 
skeletons usually seen. It is, in fact, a fine object, with a thick, 
low, bushy head, filled with healthy young wood, and in the 
summer with an abundance of dark-green, healthy foliage, and 
handsome fruit. Can any intelligent man hesitate about adopt- 
ing so simple a course of treatment to secure such valuable 
results? We recommend it with entire confidence to the 
practice of every man in the country that cultivates a peach 
tree. After he has seen and tasted its good effects, we do net 
fear his laying it aside.* 
* While this is going through the press, our attention is drawn to the 
following remarkable examples of the good effects of regular pruning, 
which we translate from the leading French Journal of Horticulture. We 
ask the attention of our readers to these cases, especially after perusing 
our remarks on the Yellows and its cause: 
“ M. Duvilliers laid before the Royal Society of Horticulture an account 
of some old peach trees that he had lately seen at the Chateau de Villiers, 
near Ferte-Aleps (Seine- et-Oise). These trees, eight in number, are grow- 
ing upon a terrace wall, which they cover perfectly, and yield abundant 
crops. The gardener assured M. Duvilliers that they had been under his 
care during the thirty years that he had been at the chateau ; that they 
were as large when he first saw them as at present, and that he supposed 
them to be at least sixty years old. We cannot doubt (says the editor) that 
it is to the annual pruning that these peach trees owe this long life; for the 
peach trees that are left to themselves in the latitude of Paris never live beyond 
twenty or thirty years. M. Duvilliers gave the accurate measurement ot 
the trunks and branches of these trees, and stated, what it is more inter- 
esting to know, that although all their trunks are hollow, like those ol 
old willows, yet their vigour and fertility are still quite unimpaired. {An- 
nates de la Societe d 1 Horticulture, tome xxx. p. 58.) 
In volume 25, page 67, of the same journal, is an account of a remark- 
able peach tree in the demesne of M. Joubert, near Villeneuve le Roi 
(departement de l’Yonne). It is trained against one of the wings of the 
mansion, covers a large space with its branches, and the circumference ol 
