254 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to grow a high percentage of fancy fruit, and at the same time grow 

 quantity. This is valuable for the following reasons: Suppose your tree 

 has been pruned by the old-fashioned close-head and thin-out method, 

 which forces the bearing wood toward the ends of the branches. As a 

 result you have clusters of apples on the same fruit spur or twig, which 

 makes it impossible to grow first-class fruit because of the law of survival 

 of the fittest, and because of the natural harbor made thereby for the 

 codling moth and for the lesser apple worm, etc. Is it not then infinitely 

 better to have an added number of fruit spurs and bearing twigs, and 

 have fruit singly borne? Perhaps you may grasp the philosophy of my 

 statement more clearly when I say that it is better to have a single apple 

 on each of five twigs or disconnected fruit spurs, than to have five apples 

 all growing on one twig or spur, when four of the five must be removed 

 by thinning before you can grow a very high percentage of first-class fruit. 

 Do you gather my meaning, when I say that it is better to grow five boxes 

 of first-class fruit on a tree by proper dissemination of the fruiting wood, 

 than to grow one box near the tips of the limbs, and the tops of the trees 

 at the same cost? 



REMOVAL OF TOPS MAKES FRUIT. 



3. Still a third advantage, and one which is contrary to horticultural 

 lore, is this: It has been usually conceeded that winter pruning tends 

 to produce wood, and summer pruning to produce fruit. But the writer 

 has in two or three instances demonstrated that the removal of the tops 

 from thriftily growing trees, ten to twenty shears of age, in the dormant 

 period tends to fruit them sooner and more abundantly than could other- 

 wise be expected in three or four more years by the close-head method. 

 The reason for this is manifest, as the removal of the sappy and rapidly 

 growing top gives the tree a temporary check of growth and also throws 

 added strength to the fruit buds on the remaining branches, which causes 

 a profusion of buds to set fruit. 



During the past three years that we have been using this method of 

 pruning trees here in Albemarle County we have observed the following 

 facts with reference to the regard in which our- method is held by our 

 neighboring orchardists. A few have adopted our method at sight with- 

 out waiting to see the outcome, others have attempted to approximate to 

 the open-head method. Instead of cutting out the centers to the crotch 

 or to a suitable feeder they simply cut off a foot or two of the tips of the 

 longer limbs. The result is quite evident if you will stop to think what 

 must take place two or three years in the future. As a precaution, I 

 would suggest at this point that if you can not be practically certain what 

 the future will bring forth you would better for the sake of the welfare 

 of the orchard try it on a small scale at first and await developments. 

 For, when the tips are cut off in this way, the ultimate result is a com- 

 pound head for every limb that is cut, and after three or four years' 

 growth you have a top so thick and high headed that the only remedy 

 is to entirely rehead the trees at the crotch. 



