Tpi8 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7 



Scientifically Pruning and PoUenizing the Bing Cherry 



SEVERAL years ago wo were all 

 talking frost proteclioii; and then 

 a few years later the topic was 

 changed to marketing. Now the cur- 

 rent has drifted to pruning and pollen- 

 izing. That is the reason for the topic 

 chosen for this article — jusl to he up 

 to date and in fashion witli the cherry 

 crowd. The only claim tn originality 

 here is in substituting "Bing" for 

 "cherry." That was done to avoid 

 plagiarism; but what is said in the fol- 

 lowing will generally ajjply to the 

 other commercial varieties as well at 

 to the Bing. 



If you kill a toad your cow will give 

 bloody milk. This bit of boy philoso- 

 phy is about on a par with the popular 

 notion of pruning a cherry tree. Thir- 

 teen years ago I planted ten acres of 

 cherries; and being a college product I 

 was of course somewhat ignorant. I 

 asked scores of people whether to 

 prune cherry trees, and the verdict was 

 almost unanimous against it. I did 

 some pruning from the first, but shared 

 in the general superstition about the 

 dire evils to follow the cutting of a 

 limb. For years the only severe prun- 

 ing I did was like the horse doctor 

 with his new medicine — on something 

 "as good as dead." To my great sur- 

 prise nearly every tree, no matter how 

 bad the condition, came out and made 

 a healthy, vigorous tree. To rejuvenate 

 a sick tree is one of the great benefits 

 of pruning the cherry. In these cases 

 I sacrifice form for vigor — cut away 

 half or sometimes three-fourths of the 

 tree, leaving the branches which show 

 best growth of twigs, and disregard- 

 ing the form, as that will remedy itself 

 when growth begins. Several of our 

 best trees now have at some time "gone 

 light," as the poultryman says of a hen. 

 The pruning, of course, is only a part 

 of the treatment, but the most impor- 

 tant special part. 



In addition to helping sick trees, I 

 prune for shape of the tree, for vigor 

 and for size of the fruit. A cherry tree 

 will become too tall for profitable 

 handling as a commercial proposition; 

 so the\- must be kept down to reason- 

 able height. Most trees should be 

 within the reach of a ten or twelve- 

 foot ladder. In case of a full crop, and 

 by keeping hollow centers, a large part 

 of the croj) can be picked from the 

 ground and the bulk. of it from short 

 ladders or steps. A hollow toj) and 

 wide-spreading tree is the onl>' form 

 for a cherry. But do not understand 

 that form is a result of pruning alone. 

 Form is dependent as much or more 

 upon the plant food availal)le and upon 

 the room — that is, the siile brandies 

 and foliage have the full sunlight. The 

 natural shape of a younu well-fed Bing 

 tree is not that of a young Bartlett or 

 Rome Beauty, as some have suiiposed. 

 The spread will keeij pace with the 

 height, and llie form fend to that of a 

 ball. If the horizontal twigs grow one 

 foot while the top grows two feet, the 

 round form is maintained, making two 



By E. Bowles, Prosser, Washington 



feet spread for two in hei,:;lit. Where 

 this proportion is not maintained it is 

 either shortage of available food in the 

 soil or obstruction to the free, full day's 

 sunlight on the side foliage. But this 

 ideal condition does not exist in most 

 cases — semi-starvation for both food 

 and sunlight being the conmion condi- 

 tion. In these cases, especially the ex- 

 treme ones, the growth is on the top — 

 merely a stationary base with a story 

 added each year. And these are the 

 cases where the knife must be used 

 severely to overcome the deformity. 



The method of pruning must vary 

 greatly from that for the apple. Make 

 as few cuts as possible — cut one large 

 branch rather than a dozen small ones. 

 Often I cut out a six-inch branch; and 

 usually two to four big cuts will cure 

 an old neglected tree. I have done some 

 clipping for several years, but am still 

 somewhat skeptical in regar<l to it as 

 a general practice — preferring thinning 

 by the heavy cuts and leaving the 

 smaller branches untouched. 



Another peculiar rule — cut out the 

 best branch. That sounds silly; but it 

 is this way. A half-starved Bing will 

 often begin to throw its plant food to 

 one big branch, overtowering the other 

 three or four branches which at one 

 time were its equals. If this big branch 

 is cut out at the base — the first fork — 

 the food will distribute well among the 

 remaining branches. If it is clipped 

 and doctored higher up, the trouble is 

 often merely multiplied — a shock of 

 sprouts and continued robbing of the 

 other sections of the tree. 



As to time of pruning, that makes 

 little difference. Never clip a branch 

 when the fruit is on, for the purpose 

 of thinning the fruit, as this injures 

 flavor by the removal of foliage on the 

 same branch. Otherwise prune when 

 your saw and work spirit are in good 

 order. Yes, one other exception : clip- 

 ping immediately after jncking forces 

 too much sap into the buds and causes 

 overgrowth in the fall, and sometimes 

 fall blossoms; but removal of whole 

 branches doesn't have this effect so 

 much at that time. 



Pollination was not discussed much 

 till the last four or five >ears, yet no 

 other question is of iTHjre importance 

 to the cherry grower. I have heard of 

 no orchard that was planted with any 

 thought on the subject; and the suc- 

 cessful orchards are mere accidents by 

 having seedlings or otht r inferior sorts 

 mixed in. It seems that our three lead- 

 ing varieties — Bings, Lamberts and 

 Hoyal Anns — do not cross pollenize; 

 and the only way is to have some in- 

 ferior sorts in the orcliar<l. The first 

 (|ueslion is: What varieties will fer- 

 tilize our commercial cherries? Many 

 lists have been named hy different au- 

 thorities — Black Republican, Black 

 Tartarian, ^^'aterhouse, ( ov. Wood, also 

 most seedlings. 15ut I do not care what 

 you calf your free, I never use a bud 

 for pollenizing without satisfactory 

 evidence that if is from a tree that has 



done successful business. The Water- 

 house is often recommended as the best 

 market cherry among the pollenizers. 



The Bing is our hardest tree to fer- 

 tilize, because if blossoms first. Nearly 

 all otherwise good pollenizers come 

 out too late for the best work on the 

 Bing; and in an extremely late spring 

 the Bing sometimes is barren of fruit 

 when standing near a tree that in other 

 years causes a full crop. In a horse 

 race, the longer the time the farther 

 they are apart at the end. The Bing is 

 usually three or four days ahead of the 

 poUenizer; and in a late spring six or 

 eight days. With limited success, I have 

 used artificial means to speed up the 

 pollenizer: A few days before blos- 

 soming, sheets around the north side 

 of the tree, fires around them on cool 

 nights and even through the day, cov- 

 ering the ground for midwinter and 

 uncovering for early spring. 



In planting an orchard, from five to 

 ten per cent should be pollenizers, and 

 these scattered as evenly over the area 

 as possible, never in rows unless the 

 pollenizers can be made of more com- 

 mercial imporfance, and then plant 

 twenty per cent or more of them. 



I have fried both grafting and bud- 

 ding into old Bing trees to scatter pol- 

 lenizers, but much prefer the latter. 

 Last year I put in some two thousand 

 buds, scattering them widely where 

 most needed — got from fifty to eighty 

 per cent where I would have been 

 pleased even with twenty per cent. 

 This method aims to raise the efficiency 

 of the pollen several hundred per cent. 

 A large tree that is wholly a pollenizer 

 is probably much under ten per cent 

 efficiency — that is, the bee is moving 

 nearly all the time from one pollenizing 

 blossom to another instead of crossing 

 to the Bing and back and forth where 

 the work will be effective. I began 

 budding ,luly 2,5 and worked at it occa- 

 sionally for a month. In most cases the 

 earlier <late is safer, as the sap must be 

 running well. One-year-old wood takes 

 the bud best if the twig is huge and 

 vigorous, otherwise two-year-old wood 

 did best. Success requires a thrifty 

 condition of the tree receiving the bud. 

 What 1 call "artificial pollenizing" is 

 a still shorter course to success, and it 

 is a success in a high degree. I have 

 scattered buckets of "posies" through 

 the orchard, hanging the buckets in the 

 trees where needed. A bucket of warm 

 water filled with twigs not more than 

 two feet long — the blossoms half out 

 when taken — will last two to four days 

 and pay big dividends on the time 

 sjient. I have also put larger branches 

 in the water ditches or planted them in 

 the wet ground with success. But at 

 last I struck upon a method I believe 

 more practical on a large- scale than 

 any of these. 1 left the [iruning of the 

 pollenizers till the trees were blooming, 

 was ready with tools when the bees 

 came in the morning, tlien worked like 

 a member of the file squad cutting 



