EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



383 



veloped in the course of three or four years in a tree in which the scaffold 

 limbs are bare, by the use of well situated water sprouts. They should be 

 cut back leaving them from six to twelve inches in length to encourage the 

 development of side branches. These in turn should be slightly headed back 

 the following year. After this, the heading back should be materially les- 

 sened to encourage the formation of fruit spurs. To make this operation 

 successful it is essential that the trees be thimied about the outside to admit 

 light sufficient to allow the development of fruit spurs and to color the fruit. 



Figure 24. An old apple tree which has just been pruned. All water 

 sprouts and other growths were removed from the lower portions of the tree, 

 but no thinning was done in the top. The top should have been well thinned 

 and some of the growths on the lower portions saved to re-estabUsh fruit pro- 

 duction in those parts. 



The average man has a tendency to cut out one or both of two branches 

 which cross, because they have been instructed to remove cross branches. 

 In many cases better results would be accomplished if the branch were simply 

 shortened to a lateral. Suppose, for example, that a side branch had been 

 left to fill in a space in a tree, and that this branch continues growth, growing 

 across another branch some three feet from the first branch. This long cross 

 branch should often be cut back so as not to interfere with the branch it is 

 crossing, but still fill the space that it was intended to occupy. 



