nite shapes may be secured. It has been shown that nature prunes ; 

 that is to say, certain parts of the tree are crowded out of existence ; 

 they wither and fall away. But man, the gardener, may wish to 

 reach specific resuhs quickly. The tree may he slow in coming into 

 bearing; its o^rowth may be weakly; it may be over luxuriant. 

 These defects may be largely corrected by judicious pruning. 



Jf. The vigor of the tree may he augmented 

 hy pruning the to]).— \\\ "The Pruning Book" 

 page 12, Bailey says that " there is an exact bal- 

 ance between tlie feeding capacity of the plant, 

 that is, its root system and food supply, and the 

 superficial growth of the plant. The more active 

 and eflicient the root the larger the top. If we 

 remove a large portion of the top there is an en- 

 deavor to supply the deficiency by an exceedingly 

 rapid growth." The more or less constant food 

 supply is distributed over a smaller area — a con- 

 centration takes place and rapid growth results. 



5. Heavy jpruning in winter encourages looocl 

 2?rodiietlo7i ivhile suimner pruning discourages The croion {head) of 

 wood groioth and encourages fr nit production. — this tree needs thin- 



The old adage runs, " for wood, ^'*'*^- 

 prune in winter, for fruit, prune in summer." 

 We have already seen why winter pruning in- 

 duces wood growth. Why summer pruning 

 encourages the development of fruit-buds is not 

 so clear. In methods it differs materially. Win- 

 ter pruning to increase vigor removes large 

 branches ; summer pruning only pinches the 

 growing points. The object of the latter is to 

 lessen the number of digestive organs (the leaves) 

 so that wood growth may be checked. This 

 pinching sliould take i^lace about midsummer ; if 

 done too early wood growth is stinmlated, if too 

 late the buds may not develop. Decisive results 

 Row it mayhethinned. should not be looked for from this method. It is 



essentially a gardener's practice and hardly applicable to orchard areas. 



405 



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