142 J oiinal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 Maech, 1917. 



attained and normal seasons ensue heavy crops are harvested with 

 customary regularity. 



No matter how favorable the conditions surrounding the growth of 

 the Yates may be it rarely produces fruit above the dessert size. In 

 fact, it is often difficult to keep the fruit up to a reasonable size, even 

 en vigorous growing trees. It has been stated previously that when the 

 trees are growing over vigorously excessive leader duplication, and 

 surplus lateral growths should be encouraged until the trees have settled 

 down to normal conditions when the surplus growths may be removed 

 with a v:ew to kee,ping the fruit up to standard size. 



Plate 62 shows a twelve-year-old Yates coming in to full profit. 

 This tree is on rich soil, and hitherto made strong growths. Surplus 

 sub-leaders were retained and they have been removed during the last 

 two years. Those holding the uppermost positions were first thinned 

 out, and the one marked (a) was the last to be removed. The leaders 

 are heavily clothed with light laterals. 



Plate 63 shows the same tree pruned. The point (a) indicates the 

 position whence the sub-leader was removed. The writer's treatment 

 of the sub-leader and laterals of this tree last year was considered 

 drastic pruning, but the crop of fruit it produced subsequently was 

 so heavy that the individual fruits were under 2 inches in diameter, 

 and consequently practically unmarketable. This experience, in con- 

 junction with many other examples of its kind, has convinced the 

 writer of the absolute necessity of hard pruning the Yates, Pomme de 

 Neige, Morgan's Seedling, and others with similar fruiting charac- 

 teristics after they have commenced to bear. And this method of 

 pruning treatment is through intuition occasionally practised on these 

 varieties by fruit-growers. Poor, liglit soil, and particularly if it is 

 undrained and liable to part freely with its moisture during warm 

 weather, should not be selected as a home for the Yates, even with the 

 expressed intention of cross-fertilizing sterile varieties. Commercial 

 failure almost invariably attends the cultivation of the Yates under 

 those adverse conditions as the trees produced are weak and the fruit 

 i.s sjiipII. 



When varieties, such as the Jonathan, the blooms of which are 

 often sterile or partly sterile to their own pollen when grown on rich 

 land, are cultivated on soil with a low standard of fertility, they often 

 lose their sterility and become fruitful without the assistance of cross 

 fertilizers. However, when it is the fruit-grower's intention to plant 

 Jonathan, for instance, on poor soil, and he decides to interplant 

 with a suitable variety to secure cross pollination, one more thrifty and 

 profitable under these conditions than the Yates should be chosen. As 

 the Delicious and Sturmer bloom simultaneously with Jonathan, and 

 consequently suitHhe purpose, one of these may be selected. 



Plate 64, Fig. 1, is a "three-year-old Yates leader removed from the 

 four-year-old wood of a six-year-old tree. It was cut too long at {a) in 

 the then yearling wood. If pruned at {i) instead in all probability light 

 laterals would have been produced from the buds on the barren wood 

 below (c) The (5) cut was well gauged as ideal fruit- wood has been 

 produced on the two-year-old wood. When the cut (g) was made in 

 the yearling growth this portion should have been completely sup- 

 pressed by pruning at (c), and it is obvious that this is the point from 

 which the growth should be now removed. The lateral op- 

 posite this one on the leader should be cut off at {d). The 



