The peach and nectarine : their history, varieties, and cultivation . enext year. Practically, the young wood may varyin length from Gin. to a foot or more;9in. would prove a safe average in oldtrees; for young ones growing vigorously 18in. might not proveexcessive. It is, always, however, safer to out the shoots back toomuch than to leave them too long, for hard cutting reduces the numberof fruit, favours the vigour of the tree, and also ensures a plentifulsuccession of young wood—^the only sure and certain foundation ofpermanent health and perpetual fertility. By pruning back Fig. 42, for ex
The peach and nectarine : their history, varieties, and cultivation . enext year. Practically, the young wood may varyin length from Gin. to a foot or more;9in. would prove a safe average in oldtrees; for young ones growing vigorously 18in. might not proveexcessive. It is, always, however, safer to out the shoots back toomuch than to leave them too long, for hard cutting reduces the numberof fruit, favours the vigour of the tree, and also ensures a plentifulsuccession of young wood—^the only sure and certain foundation ofpermanent health and perpetual fertility. By pruning back Fig. 42, for example, at the disconnecting space shown,the stem pushes a shoot at its base, which is allowed to grow throughoutthe summer, to succeed the fruit shoot on Fig. 43. At the winter pruningthat fruiting shoot is removed at the base, leaving the young shoot whichduring the summer has formed fruit buds to succeed the one 44 shows a double supply of succession shoots, one or both of whichmay be retained after the removal of the last years fruiting branch. Of. Fis. a. PRUNING. 209 course there arc endless diversities of application of the principle ofpruning peaches. The foundation is, however, always the same—a goodsupply of fruit-bearing wood for the current year, and ample provisionof younger wood for the next. Of course this annual renewal of peaches and nectarinea involves theannual j;emoval of much exhausted and useless wood. The theory ofperfect pruning is a status quo of fertility in regard alike to its quantityand quality. This is a difficult matter, and needs much skill even werethere no disturbing causes at work to upset it. But there are manysuch, as, for example, a scarcity or excess of food or water, heat orcold, inequalities and irregularities of growth, insect enemies, the attacksof disease, &c. Several of these adverse influences, that nOli seldomupset the plana of the moat skilful pruners, are under the control ofcultivators, and, ao far as they are ao
Size: 1184px × 2111px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorfishdavi, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1879
