These shoots or sprays are long and slender, lined with fruit-
buds. You will often find two fruit-buds together, with a leaf-bud
between them. If the fruit-buds have been uninjured by the winter,
they will nearly all form peaches, far more than the slender spray
can support or mature. The sap will tend to give the most support
to all growth at the end of the spray or branch. The probable
result will be that you will have a score, more or less, of
peaches that are little beyond skin and stones. By midsummer the
brittle sprays will break, or the limbs split down at the
crotches. You may have myriads of peaches, but none fit for market
or table. Thousands of baskets are sent to New York annually that
do not pay the expenses of freight, commission, etc.; while the
orchards from which they come are practically ruined. I had two
small trees from which, one autumn, I sold ten dollars' worth of
fruit. They yielded more profit than is often obtained from a
hundred trees.
Now, in the light of these facts, realize the advantages secured
by cutting back the shoots or sprays so as to leave but three or
four fruit-buds on each. The tree can probably mature these buds
into large, beautiful peaches, and still maintain its vigor. By
this shortening-in process you have less tree, but more fruit.
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