January, ipJl 



BETTER FRUIT 



Pruning for Efficiency 



By Hon. W. P. Sawyer at the Northwest Fruitgrowers' Conference, Spokane, Washington 



I HAVE been asked to say something 

 about pruning for efficiency, which 

 I suppose means to induce the trees to 

 bear fruit and of a quality that will 

 command a market and good prices. 



I hear a good deal of talk about 

 "thinning out versus cutting back," 

 which I confess has always puzzled me. 

 The question that always arises with 

 me is: Whv the "versus"? Why not do 

 both? 



My experience has been mostly with 

 Bartlett pears and what little I shall 

 say will be based altogether upon my 

 experience and not at all upon theory. 

 I make no claim to being an expert and 

 I know very little of a professional's 

 ideas of pruning. 



A tree that will not set and develop a 

 proper crop of fruit is not a good tree, 

 neither is it a good tree if it has not 

 sufficient strength to carry its load to 

 maturity without props. Two things 

 are essential to the development of 

 either good fruit or good trees: Sun- 

 light and air. Neither fruit nor fruit 

 spurs and buds can be developed in the 

 shade; so in instructing my pruners 

 I impress upon them, first of all, the 

 necessity of thinning out sufficiently to 

 let the sunlight and air reach the trunks 

 and whole length of the main limbs of 

 the trees; this will cause the growth of 

 fruit spurs all along the trunks and 

 main limbs, where the trees have the 

 greatest strength with which to support 

 the fruit crop until it is fully developed, 

 and these parts of the trees are stiff and 

 rigid and protect the fruit from being 

 slammed about and marred by heavy 

 winds. With the light and air reaching 

 all these parts the same ruddy attrac- 

 tive fruit is produced there as that 

 which grows on the outside of the 

 trees. 



The next thing to explain to the 

 pruner is the necessity for a strong 

 frame that can carry the burden of a 

 proper crop without props or strings on 

 fully developed trees. This can be ac- 

 complished only by continually cutting 

 back the new growth so that the limbs 



will grow thick and strong in propor- 

 tion to their length. 



To secure the style of trees that I 

 have described we begin by cutting the 

 tree back to fifteen inches from the 

 ground when planted. The next year 

 we cut the new growths back to 12 to 

 16 inches in length and thin out to 

 from three to six branches that will 

 make a balanced head; cutting at all 

 times to terminal buds that point out 

 or against the wind. In most sections 

 of this country the winds prevail very 

 largely from one direction and the trees 

 must be braced against these winds or 

 they will soon be seen to be leaning 

 with them — this is wholly unnecessary 

 if proper care is used in shaping head 

 and in pruning. I do not like a hollow- 

 center so I always try to have one of 

 the main branches go straight up and 

 then by careful selection of buds and 

 cutting to them or to little branches that 

 point either out or against the wind, we 

 help the tree to spread out and stand 

 up-right. If there are but three 

 branches to start with the second year 

 they should each be allowed to make at 

 least two main branches, and after that 

 I believe we would do best to allow no 

 more long branches to grow, but keep 

 these six main limbs clear of every- 

 thing but short fruit spur branches. 

 You can readily see how easy it would 

 be to keep fruit grown on such branches 

 all in the sun. Until the trees are prac- 

 tically developed we prune each year as 

 I have described. No brush is allowed 

 to grow on the main limbs and no 

 clusters of sprouts are allowed on the 

 ends of these limbs but every limb is 

 pruned to one shoot at the point and in 

 the developed trees we never allow any 

 fruit buds to remain nearer than one 

 foot from the end of a main limb; this 

 is the weakest spot on the tree and the 

 place where the wind can do most harm 

 to the fruit. We do not allow the trees 

 to grow taller than can be reached 

 from a 12-foot ladder and all growth 

 above that we cut back each year to one 

 or two buds on one shoot and cut all 



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Page 25 



other shoots clear back to old wood. On 

 the main spreading limbs we cut off 

 clean, substantially, all new growth ex- 

 cepting fruit spurs and one shoot at 

 end of limb and this we cut back to six 

 or eight inches in length. In this way 

 we prevent shading brush from ever 

 getting established in our trees and 

 avoid the necessity of cutting out old 



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R. 3, Box 158, Phone 88F2 

 SALEM, OREGON 



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