154 Jni/?-iml of Af/ricul(u7-e, Victoria. [10 March, 191^ 



When healthy Five Crown trees are planted out as yearling whip- 

 growths, and when pruned so as to produce the three main arms which 

 constitute the foundation of the branch systems, they invariably respond 

 in the manner desired. And the yearly pruniugs to promote the neces- 

 sary leader duplications afterwards are, as a rule, equally successful. 



The leaders radiate from the crown at a nice angle about 40 degrees 

 from the vertical. After pruning to two side buds on the leaders for 

 the number of occasions necessary to .produce the desired number of 

 leaders, all that is necessary afterwards is to cut to outer buds to con- 

 tinue the leader extensions. 



When the yearling extensions of the leaders are of reasonable length 

 in proportion to the growth the tree is making, the leaf buds on these 

 sections, except a few near the point of the leader, develop into fruit 

 buds during the second year. Two or three of the buds near the ter- 

 minal usually give lateral growths, but these are generally removed 

 from the Five Crown, and others of similar habit in this respect, at the 

 next winter pruning. 



The fruit buds on the two-year-old wood of the leader, during suc- 

 ceeding years, develop into a system of fruit spurs which branch and 

 extend to such an extent as to obviate the necessity of retaining the 

 laterals. 



When the habit of producing fruit spurs along the leaders in this 

 way is discovered in any variety it should be, by judicious and sys- 

 tematic pruning, encouraged to the fullest extent, rather than to set 

 up a system of fruit wood through the manipulation of the lateral 

 growths. It frequently happens, when laterals are retained on the two- 

 year-old wood, and particularly in the case of the Five Crown, that 

 the previously developed fruit buds occupying lower positions on the 

 leader, instead of extending into spurs, are pinched off. This happens 

 because the laterals occupy the uppermost positions on the leaders, and 

 thus deprive the fruit buds of the amount of elaborated sap necessary 

 to lengthen them beyond the destroying influence ot the extending and 

 encom,passing cambium and bark layers. 



Plate 74 shows a seventeen-year-old Five Crown tree pruned. 

 Eighteen leaders at first constituted its branch system, but the surplus 

 ones have been thinned out in the manner previously described. The 

 twelve retained are nicely spaced and well furnished with fruit spurs. 

 The more equal in strength the portions of fruit wood in the tree the 

 more uniform in size will be the fruit produced. 



When the spurs become too crowded thev may be reduced by thin- 

 ning out the portions of each farthest away frojii the leader. The parts 

 near the leader are equally as good for fruit production, and their 

 foliage protects the bark from the sun scald, hot winds, &c. When 

 produced on spurs of equal strength along the leaders in the manner 

 described, and as shown on the tree in Plate 39, the fruit is more per- 

 fect in colour through the free admission of sunlight and air, it is of 

 more uniform size and of better quality than when grown on trees 

 pruned under the unscientific haphazard methods adopted by some 

 orchardists. The adoption of the advocated method also renders the 

 fruit and tree more amenable to spraying for Codlin Moth and Blacl- 

 Spot. The fruit is more easily picked, and the good results of 

 manurial treatment applied to trees pruned in this way are usually 

 more pronounced. 



Plate 7.5 is a Five Crown tree twelve vears old. Its cultural treat- 

 ment and pruning have received careful attention during the whole life 



