iQid 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page II 



was apparently traveling faster across 

 the limb than up and down the limb 

 from the fruit spur. 



The first new blight in the Wenatchee 

 district was reported to have been 

 found May 22nd and 29th in the Naha- 

 ham and Brender Canyons on Jon- 

 athans and Bartletts. Just why the 

 amount of blight exudate was so small 

 in the Wenatchee district and had the 

 relatively small percentage of blossom 

 infection 1 am unable to say, unless the 

 difTerencc in temperature conditions, 

 as shown by the Weather Bureau's rec- 

 ords, was a factor. 



June and July were months of un- 

 usual blight activity in the districts 



afTected by blight. On June 16th, it was 

 observed near North Yakima that 

 blight was apparently making entrance 

 at the base of leaf petioles, and on 

 July 9th Dr. Hotson observed and later 

 determined the presence of blight in- 

 fection on the outer margins of pear 

 leaves. On September 18th, the in- 

 spector reported observations of many 

 invasions of the leaves in the Spokane 

 district. The specimens were sent to 

 Dr. Heald, plant pathologist at the 

 State College, where it was reported 

 for a certainty that the blight had made 

 its entrance through tlie leaf apparently 

 without the aid of insects or mechan- 

 ical injury. In the Selah district blight 



infection was observed on pear fruit 

 on May 12th, which apparently became 

 infected from the <lripping of blight 

 ooze. That drupaceous fruits may 

 sometimes become infected with pear 

 blight has been proven. On June 19th, 

 the inspector found four young prune 

 trees at College Place, near Walla 

 Walla, infected with tii) blight. Speci- 

 mens were sent to Dr. Heald of the 

 State College and he determined the 

 infection to be that of ordinary pear 

 blight. During June Dr. Hotson, at 

 North Yakima, proved that cherry fruit 

 could be inoculated with the pear 

 blight organism and has cross-inocu- 

 lated several times with Royal Ann tips. 



Pruning the Bearing Apple and Pear Tree 



By Professor V. R. Gardner, Oregon Agricultural College, Corvallis, Oregon. 



IN presenting this subject it is as- 

 sumed that the trees have been 

 brought to bearing age. They have 

 been trained as open-center, closed- 

 center or niodilied-leader trees, as the 

 case may be. They have been given 

 their general shape and consecpiently 

 little attention will need to be devoted 

 to the question of training them. The 

 little training that will be recpiired will 

 be incidental to the main jjrobleni of 

 pruning to influence fruit production. 

 After trees have been brought to bear- 

 ing age there is little argument as to 

 what the niain objects of pruning 

 should be. They are, first, to obtain 

 large quantities of fruit, full yields for 

 the size of the trees in question: sec- 

 ond, to obtain better fruit, the best that 

 can be grown under the conditions in 

 question; third, to obtain these large 

 yields and high grade at the lowest 

 possible cost. 



The Ideal Fruit-Spur System 

 As has already been pointed out in 

 a previous article, the fruitgrower 

 obtains the most of his fruit through 

 the medium of fruit-spurs. In other 

 words, fruit-spurs are the main fruiting 

 mechanism, or main fruit-producing 

 machinery of the trees. The questions, 

 then, to consider are: What constitutes 

 an ideal fruit-sijur system and when 

 is that fruit-spur system in an ideal 

 producing condition. In the first in- 

 stance we want manv spurs. This does 

 not mean, necessarily, the largest pos- 

 sible number of fruit-siiurs for any 

 given space, but we must have a great 

 many or else we cannot obtain a large 

 number of fruits, for ordinarily a 

 single spur does not produce more than 

 one high-grade fruit in one season. 

 Frequently several fruits set on a single 

 spur, but in the better-managed or- 

 chards these aie thinned to one, which 

 is allowed to mature. We want not 

 only many spurs, but it is desiiable 

 that each spur be strong and vigorous. 

 It seems reasonable that a strong, vig- 

 orous s|)ur not only will ])ro<Iuce better 

 fruit than one which is weak, but it 

 will also be more regular in its hcu'- 

 ing: and regularity of bearing of indi- 

 vidual fruit-spurs is as important from 

 the viewijoint of annual yields as the 



number of fruit-spurs present. A regu- 

 larly bearing fruit-spur in the case of 

 apples and pears is one that bears once 

 in every two years. It cannot be ex- 

 pected to bear every year, for normally 

 a fruit is produced from a terminal bud 

 one season and the next season is re- 

 quired to prolong the spur from a lat- 

 eral leaf bud so another terminal 

 flower bud can be formed the follow- 



ing year. The spur which bears in 

 1915 can reasonably be expected to bear 

 again in 1917. However, the trouble 

 with a large percentage of fruit-spurs, 

 especially in older trees, is that they 

 do not bear every other year. Instead 

 they bear but once in three, four, five 

 or, in some cases, eight or ten years. 

 This irregularity of bearing generally 

 is due to a lack of vigor on the part of 



I // 



#%M 







I-'i«i;re 45 — A young apple Ircc shnwing the cfTecl of very heavy heading back. 

 In this case the pnniei- eiil hack into two-year and three-year-old wood. 

 I'rnit spurs that hail slarled lo form were finci'd out into shoots. The entire 

 eiu'rgies of the tree have been temporarily turned into shoot fornialion. Age 

 of hearing lias probably been delayed two years by the treatment 



