Page 10 



BETTER FRUIT 



December 



(■;in bo iloiu- wlu'ii they first stnrt 1)\ 

 rubbint; tliciii oil' with the fingei-s, but 

 if ])erniittc(l to grow until wood is 

 I'oiiiied in the sprouts by nil means do 

 not pull them ofT, but eut them off with 

 a shai]) knife. 



Let all the limbs and leaves grow 

 whieh form near the top of the tree. 

 The more the better, except that if one 

 limb gets so much of a start that it is 

 hogging all the rest cut it back. The 

 more leaves a young tree can form the 

 .areater will be its root system. A tree, 

 like any other plant, cannot form roots 

 and a strong body unless it has leaves 

 to manufacture the food to nourish 

 them, and it is a good root system yon 

 should be most interested in the first 

 year. Therefore, let every leaf and 

 limb grow that will grow the first year, 

 except as above mentioned, for a i)lant 

 cannot form roots without leaves any 

 more than it can form leaves without 

 roots. 



I am in favor of low-headed trees for 

 several reasons, but not so low that the 

 lower branches will lie in the dust and 

 dirt when loaded with fruit. I am in 

 favor of a low-headed tree because, 

 first, the branches will shade the trunk 

 of the tree and prevent sunscald, which 

 is a very disastrous efi'ect we are liable 

 to get from the direct rays of the sun in 

 some of the hot, dry districts. Second, 

 the lower you keep your trees the more 

 will you facilitate the pruning, si)ray- 

 ing, thinning and the picking of the 

 fruit. The low measure of average ex- 

 pense in the doing of the work will be 

 just in jjroportion to the amount of it 

 which can be done by men standing 

 upon the ground. And the increased 

 average of expense will depend upon 

 the proportion of the work which must 

 be done upon ladders. The increased 

 cost of cultivation by reason of the 

 disadvantage of low-headed trees is a 

 very insignificant item in orchard ex- 

 pense when everything is considered. 



Pruning One-Year-Old Trees.— This 

 is the year when you can gain or lose 

 more time in the life of your orchard 

 than at any other period of its exist- 

 ence. If the trees are started right at 

 this age, and then kept in good form, 

 you need never thereafter do heavy cut- 

 ting, thereby losing a great growth of 

 wood which ought to be bearing fruit. 

 In the season of 1913 I was called upon 

 to prune some six-year-old trees which 

 had never had proper care, especially 

 in pruning. In these trees fully three- 

 quarters of the growth will have to be 

 taken out before they can be gotten into 

 anything like proper form for good re- 

 sults, and some of them can never be 

 made good trees. The waste of such 

 misdirected growth, if not criminal, is 

 certainly most expensive. All lack of 

 intelligent attention and care, when it 

 comes to orcharding, is expensive and 

 puts the balance away over on the 

 wrong side of the ledger. To me, a 

 fruit tree is a living, breathing creature. 

 And the trees I work upon have almost 

 as close a hold upon me as my own 

 flesh and blood. They will quickly re- 

 spond to proper care and attention, and 

 you can train them into practically any 

 form you want. They are like children. 



If neglected, they seem more inclined 

 to go wrong tlian right. How essential 

 it is, then, that we give them good caie. 



This is the time, one year after the 

 trees were set out, to connnence the 

 fi-amework or lieading of your trees. 

 In pruning one of these trees, look at 

 it, but endeavor to see it in your mind's 

 e,\ e, fourteen or fifteen years fdd, and 

 start your framework to grow to what 

 > ou want youi- ideal tree to be when it 

 is fifteen years old. Four well-directed 

 limbs is enough for a heading, but leave 

 five or six if you can. Six will be bet- 

 ter, so that if any one of them gets 

 broken ofT your tree will not be so apt 

 to be thrown out of balance. If you 

 only have three or four limbs, if one of 

 these is destroyed your tree may be 

 ruined forever, unless you understand 

 budding or veneer grafting, in which 

 case you may start a limb where 

 needed, but such lindis are seldom as 

 strong as those growing out naturally 

 on the tree. Lo, but the young tree 

 suffereth nuich from the hired help, so 

 don't let them get closer than two feel 

 fiT)m the tree with cultivating imple- 

 n)ents. Do the rest of the cultivating 

 around the tree with a hoe. It will pay. 

 So my injunction is, keep a little more 

 growth in your young trees than is 

 actually needed for framework, so that 

 if it meets with an accident it can be 

 overcome without serious loss. I never 

 expect necessarily to bring my trees 

 to my ideal form until they are ready to 

 bear. Then if 1 find I have an>' surplus 

 timber, I cut it out and ]jut my tree in 

 trim, well-balanced form for business. 

 If your trees are properly jiruned this 

 first year and then kept in good form, 

 yon will never need to do heavy cut- 

 ting, thereby losing a lot of misdirected 

 growth, and your trees will be thrifty 

 and strong and should begin to pro- 

 duce a fine crop when four to five 

 years old. 



In pruning young trees, always avoid 

 bad crotches. If there are two limbs 

 growing upward of about equal size, if 

 you try to save both, you will have a 

 bad crotch. Make your tree out of the 

 best one and cut the other off close up 

 to the trunk. If you have a tree with 

 one strong, upright shoot with weak, 

 stunted limbs only on one side, top 

 the shoot oir, make your tree of it and 

 remove the stunted limbs. According 

 to my exiJcrience .'md observation it is 

 a mistake to have Tom-Dick-and-Harry 

 in charge of the i)runing of an orchard 

 of young trees, for, if the jjruner does 

 not have the futiue of these young trees 

 at heart, he will not — he cannot — give 

 them the care and attention they 

 should have. 



In the rejuvenating of old orchards, 

 wiiich have been more or less neglected 

 and permitted to grow up into the air 

 so that an airship is needed to gel the 

 fruit out of them, is the place for the 

 artistic orchard man to show his 

 genius. It ma\- take three or four years 

 to get these old trees into anything like 

 good form, but if they are of good vari- 

 ety it is worth the effort. Invariably, 

 in attempting to re-form these old trees, 

 the orchardist is afraid to cut for fear 

 he is going to spoil the Ircr. If lie feels 



that way about il be had bettei' keep 

 out. He sboidil know "what" he is 

 doing, "why" lie is doing it and "what 

 the result" will be ■.i\'n\ then go ahead, 

 regardless of how devastating the work 

 may appear to others. If an ap])le tree 

 is vigorous and Ihi'iflx it is a splendid 

 fighter. If heavily pruned it will im- 

 mediately proceed to throw out new 

 limbs from bottom to top in an en- 

 deavor to obtain a leaf surface which 

 will balance its root system. By taking 

 advantage of this new growth you can 

 build iiractically a new tree on the old 

 trunk by selecting and directing new 

 limbs. It is not so much a <|uestion of 

 the size of a limb you cut off as it is the 

 question of what you leave Just below 

 where you cut the limb off. In taking 

 the high fops out of these old trees, I 

 would not hesitate to cut off a limb ten 

 inches in diameter, provided there is 

 Just below where I cut it ofi' a good- 

 sized limb with iilenfy of branches to 

 it. Never cut a limb off leaving a bare 

 stub. It will die from lack of leaf sur- 

 face to sustain it. In making these cuts, 

 cut as close up as possible and make a 

 clean, smooth cut, avoiding splits. On 

 cutting ofi" a large limb, first cut it olf 

 18 to 24 inches above where you are 

 to make the regular cut and then cut 

 ofT the stub. This will avoid the possi- 

 bility of a bad split. In doing heavy 

 cutting such as may be necessary in re- 

 forming old trees, do it early in the 

 spring before the buds start, never 

 after the foliage is out. Make all cuts 

 in a slanting manner so water will 

 run off. 



All cuts larger than three-fourths of 

 an inch in diameter should be painted 

 and kept painted with lead paint. 

 ^^Tlenever cracks appear, paint again to 

 keep out the water. If water gets in 

 and the scar is kept wet, decay will 

 start and your tree may be permanently 

 injured. Scars caused by having the 

 bark knocked off, or where limbs have 

 been broken away, .should be first 

 trimmed around the edges to make a 

 good, smooth surface and then painted 

 over and kept painted. .Ml cuts and 

 scars rightly cared for will baste over 

 and heal up smoothly. Never use tar 

 or an>- preparation having tar in it for 

 painting of cuts and scars on trees. Al- 

 ways use a good quality of lead paint. 



The question is sometimes asked: 

 ^^^^en is the best time for pruning? 

 And my answer is. whenever you see 

 an undesirable limb or sprout on any 

 of your trees cut it off if you have a 

 .sharp tool to do it with. The "best" 

 time to pi'une will deiiend upon what 

 you are after. If you after wood 

 growth, prune during the dormant sea- 

 son, preferably early in the spring. So- 

 called "summer pruning" is practiced 

 where increased fi'uif production is de- 

 sired, or to enconra.ge frees to produce 

 on off \ ears. Tlie term is not well ap- 

 Ijlied, however, for if would indicaf'' 

 that "any old time in summer" would 

 do, which is a mistake. The lime to do 

 summer ])runiiig is after the main sea- 

 son's growth is over and the terminal 

 buds are formed, which will be about 

 the latter part of August, depending, 



C.nntiniied on page 31 



