FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 



bear almost exclusively on spurs. Many varieties which are well known 

 as annual bearers produce numbers of lateral fruit buds, or many of the 

 spurs bloom two or more years in succession. Of course, it would not 

 be necessary that every spur should bloom every year in order to secure 

 annual bearing of the tree. It would be quite possible, and in fact 

 very desirable, to have part of the spurs bloom one year, and part the 

 next, so that by an alternation of the blooming of sprir.s, the tree as a 

 whole would bloom annually. This last condition would be particularly 

 desirable if the blooms on established spurs were further supplemented 

 by blooms from fruit buds borne as laterals, or as terminals on the growths 

 of the previous season, and from new spurs developing on older wood. 



Fortunately there are now available definite figures, which demon- 

 strate the fact previously mentioned, that there is a direct association 

 between short growth and fruit bud formation, and that the most abun- 

 dant development of high quality buds is associated neither with the 

 most rapid growth nor the poorest growth. These measurements have 

 been made in Wisconsin, Ontario, Missouri, Iowa, and other localities. 

 All tell the same story, and furnish the grower one means of judging what 

 his trees are doing, or should be doing to insure fruit buds of good quality. 

 These measurements show (1), that short growths, less than one eighth 

 of an inch in length, are likely to have vegetative buds at the tips; (2), 

 that long growths more than ten or twelve inches in length are also 

 likely to have vegetative buds as their terminals, though in many varie- 

 ties they may have lateral fruit buds developed on them; and (3), that 

 growths of from half an inch in length to three inches in length are very 

 likely to end in strong, vigorous fruit buds. Shoot diameter is as im- 

 portant as shoot length; sturdy, stocky growths being much more likely- 

 to develop better buds than thin spindling shoots of the same length, 

 whatever that may be. It should be pointed out further that the longer 

 growths, which bear terminal vegetative buds, are exceedingly^ valuable 

 in bringing about annual bearing, for upon them within two or three 

 years sturdy, vigorous fruit buds are almost certain to be developed. 

 In many varieties they produce lateral fruit buds in the axils of the 

 leaf during their first year, and they may bear fruits the second year. 

 Thus they form an important part in the machinery of annual bearing, 

 so important in fact, that in practice the attempt should be to cause 

 some branches to grow so vigorously that they will not remain as spurs, 

 nor produce an abundance of fruit buds during the year of their greatest 

 growth, but will delay such production until the year following, when 

 other shoots will be caused to grow vigorously, and so on. Varieties 

 differ in regard to the exact amount of growth that is associated with 

 the various types of buds that it is possible for them to produce, but 

 the general proposition holds as given above. 



\'aluable as these figures are, they would be of little significance, 

 however, if it were not ):)Ossible to relate them to conditions of nutrition 

 and the materials concerned in it, so that there would be some knowledge 

 available as to the means by which the type and lengths of growth de- 

 sired could be produced at the will of the fruit-grower. Fortunately, 

 such information is available, and though it has been presented to 3'ou 

 several years ago, it may be repeated. As will be shown, although the 

 very short shoots and the very long shoots both end in vegetative buds, 

 such buds are quite different in quality in the two cases, and are associ- 



