STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. IO9 



done to open the tops of trees, but a severe pruning, a heavy 

 pruning, is going to augment the trouble, rather than lessen it. 



Mr. Gardner: May I ask v^^hether in New York State you 

 prune in the early part of the tree's growth to what we term an 

 open top? 



Prof. Hedrick : No, very few New York growers prune to 

 secure an open top to the apple tree. They leave the center in. 

 They like a two or three story tree. It gives much better bearing 

 surface than the open center. Of course many factors enter 

 into pruning. Suppose your orchard is in sandy, gravelly land. 

 The normal growth is small. Under such conditions you can 

 prune heavily. But take the reverse, the heavy land, the rich 

 land, the trees are making a large growth. Too often the 

 owner thinks, "I must cut down, curtail the growth of those 

 trees. I am going to do it by pruning." He simply augments 

 the trouble when he prunes heavily in such soil. Then there is 

 all the difference in the world in varieties. Some sorts, like 

 Baldwin, Greening, Northern Spy, large growers at best, ought 

 not to be pruned nearly as heavily as Rome Beauty, Wealthy, 

 Jonathan, or even Mcintosh, although the Mcintosh is a fairly 

 thrifty grower. It is a general rule, the poorer the soil the more 

 you can prune, and it is also a general rule, the weaker the 

 growth of the tree, normally, the variety, the more you can 

 prune. All those things have to be taken into consideration. 



Question : Do you think that is one reason why you do not 

 get better colored fruit there as you do in some other sections ? 



Answer : That is one reason, and then the fact that we like 

 dollars and cents, and that apple buyers, as a rule, will pay no 

 more for highly colored fruit than for that that is less highly 

 colored, and size and quantity in fruits are antagonistic to color 

 in fruit, and so our growers aim to get the maximum size and 

 the maximum quantity rather than the highest color. They 

 make more money by so doing, at least temporarily. 



Mr. Gardner : We have been troubled this year, particularly, 

 with blotch on fruit, laying it primarily to our wet season, but 

 we get a good deal any season where the trees are very thick. 



Prof. Hedrick : That is another factor that has to be taken 

 into consideration in pruning. 



No. 4. Are we to expect more money in the future for apples, 

 as a result of the grading and packing law? 



