Page 14 



BETTER FRUIT 



February 



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Wlicre are the fellows who ten years ago laughed at the 

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 and an unnecessary expense? 



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 Attentioa Service Dept. 



MYERS 



COG GEAR 



GENERAL 



PURPOSE 



SPRAYER 



No. R329 



F. E. MYERS & BRO., NO. 120 ORANGE ST.. Ashland, Ohio 



pruning conies from a region in close 

 proximity to the point where the cut 

 is nmde. You have all noticed that 

 when large pear trees are dehorned 

 that the response is simply a whole lot 

 of watersprouts just at the point where 

 the hranch was cut and that the por- 

 tions of the tree remote from these 

 wounds is not intlucncetl in any sense. 

 Possibly if it is inlluenccd it is weak- 

 ened rather than strengthened. If this 

 principle is true, and it is easy to 

 demonstrate that it is, why then the 

 wise method of handling the tree would 

 be to distribute the pruning as gen- 

 erally all over the trees as is consistent, 

 planning that in our system of pruning 

 all parts of the tree will become rein- 

 vigorated; perhaps not all in one given 

 year, but certainly within a period of 

 a few years. Every portion of the tree 

 must be reached. If you do not do this, 

 sooner or later, all the fruiting por- 

 tions of the tree will be at the top and 

 outside. 



In our work at Ihe Experiment Sta- 

 tion we have demonstrated that where 

 groups of spurs are thinned on pear 

 and prune trees, for example, that it 

 results in a reinvigoration of the sur- 

 rounding spurs and leads in a few 

 years to the formation of very strong 



buds and spurs on the new wood 

 caused by the pruning. By actually re- 

 ducing the number of spurs in certain 

 portions of the tree we have reinvig- 

 orated the remainder, making them 

 more fruitful, causing them to produce 

 better fruit and at the same time laying 

 the foundation for the development of 

 new spurs and buds. In our winter 

 pruning the more we can reach the 

 various parts of the tree the nearer we 

 will be to keeping the trees producing 

 hi.ah-grade fruit. 



In our work at the Experiment Sta- 

 tion we have recently completed a 

 study of si)urs and the work shows 

 clearly that the percentage of spurs 

 that bloom decreases as they get older 

 and that the percentage of spurs bear- 

 ing fruit decreaces even faster as they 

 get older. In other words, some spurs 

 may have strength lo blossom, but do 

 not have enough reserve energy to 

 mature fruit. Spurs decrease in the 

 amount of fruit for each spur as they 

 become older. The amount of growth 

 that a sjjur makes for a given season 

 has a close relation to its bearing the 

 following season, and there is also a 

 relation between heavy bearing and 

 length and diameter of spur. Lastly, 

 branches that have a large diameter 



have stronger spurs and bear more 

 fruit. 



It seems to me that these investiga- 

 tions with spurs indicate very clearly 

 what our method of procedure must 

 be with our heavy-bearing orchards, 

 namely, that we must develop strong 

 spurs and that we must head and thin 

 in such a way that we distribute the 

 stimulus over all parts of the tree, 

 avoiding confining our pruning to two 

 or three parts of the tree. One should 

 attempt to develop a fair amount of 

 new wood annually in order to provide 

 for the necessary increase of new buds 

 and spurs essential to the best tree 

 development. 



In preparing this article I have 

 drawn freely from our published in- 

 vestigations as shown in Station Bul- 

 letins 130 and 139. 



Discussion 



Question: Is it desirable to prune 

 in the winter irrespective of tempera- 

 ture? 



Professor Lewis: I would not prune 

 at a low temperature, where the wood 

 was frozen. I do not know any one 

 doing work to tell at what temperature 

 you can prune. I remember in 1908 

 we got a great deal of black heart and 

 personally I felt that the trees having 

 l)een pruned in a frozen condition had 

 st)mething to do with it. 



Question: Are trees in this locality 

 dormant enough to prune now? 



Professor Lewis: That would depend 

 somewhat on the nature of the prun- 

 ing. If they are hardened up thor- 

 ou.ehly you might do some thinning out. 



Question: Are cuts made in the win- 

 ter as susceptible to blight infection as 

 those made in the summer? 



Professor Lewis: Probably not. 

 Blight at this season is in the dormant 

 form and in the summer it is in the 

 active form. We are finding that it is 

 probable in cutting blight we have got 

 to have a repellant as well as a disin- 

 fectant. You can cut a branch and dis- 

 infect it, and an insect may come along 

 later and reinfect it unless there is a 

 repellant. One of the biggest problems 

 now is to get a repellant and disin- 

 fectant. 



Question: Wouldn't the cut made in 

 the winter have an opportunity to dry 

 to prevent infection before the new 

 growth came in the spring? 



Professor Lewis: That would be my 

 oiiinion, but please take that only as 

 an opinion. 



Question: Would you thin fruit spurs 

 on trees just coming into bearing? 



Professor Lewis: The trees to look 

 out for are the trees that are beginning 

 lo go into a decline. In going through 

 the Northwest it is surprising to find 

 how many trees are going into a de- 

 cline. You who are in your orchards 

 from day to day don't see how your 

 trees are going into this decline. Too 

 nian\' of your blossoms are small and 

 too many are not setting fruit; if you 

 could prevent that condition you would 

 gain a whole lot. In many cases our 

 soil conditions and methods of hand- 

 ling our trees are causing this early 

 decline which we must lake strong 



Continued on page 28 



