usefulness.  Thus the peach-trees of the garden will not only furnish some of the most delicious morsels of the year, but also a very agreeable and light phase of labor.  They can be made pets which will amply repay all kindness; and the attentions they most appreciate, strange to say, are cutting and pinching.  The pruning-shears in March and early April can cut away forming burdens which could not be borne, and pinching back during the summer can maintain beauty and symmetry in growth.  When the proprietor of the Home Acre has learned from experience to do this work judiciously, his trees, like the grape-vines, will afford many hours of agreeable and healthful recreation.  If he regards it as labor, one great, melting, luscious peach will repay him.  A small apple, pear, or strawberry usually has the flavor of a large one; but a peach to be had in perfection must be fully matured to its limit of growth on a healthful tree.

Let no one imagine that the shortening in of shoots recommended consists of cutting the young sprays evenly all round the trees as one would shear a hedge.  It more nearly resembles the pruning of the vine; for the peach, like the vine, bears its fruit only on the young wood of the previous summer’s growth.  The aim should be to have this young bearing wood distributed evenly over the tree, as should be true of a grape-vine.  When the trees are kept low, as dwarf standards, the fruit is more within reach, and less liable to be blown off by high winds.  Gradually, however, if the trees prove healthful, they will get high enough up in the world.

Notwithstanding the rigorous pruning recommended, the trees will often overload themselves; and thinning out the young peaches when as large as hickory nuts is almost imperative if we would secure good fruit.  Men of experience say that when a tree has set too much fruit, if two-thirds of it are taken off while little, the remaining third will measure and weigh more than would the entire crop, and bring three times as much money.  In flavor and beauty the gain will certainly be more than double.

Throughout its entire growth and fruiting life the peach-tree needs good cultivation, and also a good but not overstimulated soil.  Well-decayed compost from the cow-stable is probably the best barnyard fertilizer.  Wood-ashes are peculiarly agreeable to the constitution of this tree, and tend to maintain it in health and bearing long after others not so treated are dead.  I should advise that half a peck be worked in lightly every spring around each tree as far as the branches extend.  When enriching the ground about a tree, never heap the fertilizer round the trunk, but spread it evenly from the stem outward as far as the branches reach, remembering that the head above is the measure of the root extension below.  Air-slacked lime is also useful to the peach in small quantities; and so, no doubt, would be a little salt from time to time.  Bone-meal is highly recommended.