90 BUTLER: ALTERNATE BEARING IN THE APPLE 
Of the various ways in which flower buds form in the apple, 
we may dismiss as of absolutely no importance from the point of 
view of crop production, flower bud development on second growth, 
and the same may be said of flower bud development on spurs 
from leaders of the same age. The following table will show 
quite clearly that such floral buds produce as a rule but a small 
part of the total bloom, and this despite the fact that the data 
were taken by counting random branches round individual trees 
from the apex of a leader down the branch for a convenient 
distance. 
TABLE I 
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF SPURS AND FRUIT BRANCHES IN CROP PRODUCTION 
Variety a nt i Blossom on spurs, Clusters on fruit branches, 
| amined per cent. per cent. 
med Astrachan, osc 5 | 2 100: 0 
Early: Harvest:..2.. 2... 2 100 oO 
fs See Coogee ok I 87.6 12.4 
phe es Mee gM: I 99.42 0.58 
Sheng sind Greening . | I I fo) 
Matlawater oo os | I 90.5 > 90.5 
D int Hy caer ee Ana | I 98.2 5.2 
PRCUCD sis oie eae ce Ss i 89.8 10.2 
Wie litte oc Ro ee I I 4.6 4 
Wealthy a. eGo eis st 2 62.3-95 37-7-5.0 
Maas oe aes 100—89.4 (mean 99.09)| 0.0-10.6 (mean 0.91) 
Peck’ s apne Lees 2 98.75-97-9 
Gate alate I 80.6 
On apple trees of bearing age the leaders may develop apical 
flower buds during the first year. But this mode of bearing does 
not play a material part in the total yield of a tree. The crop of 
apples, at least in years when the yield is good, is produced by 
the spurs. Let us study, therefore, the behavior of the spurs 
following their first productive year. 
We have seen that a spur usually develops from an axillary 
bud on two-year-old wood and forms an apical bud subtended by 
a rosette of three to four leaves, which develops next year into a 
very short growth bearing a bud subtended by a rosette of six to 
eight leaves, and experience has shown that such a bud is invariably 
a flower bud, ee the apical bud with a rosette of three to four 
leaves is only potentially floriferous. The flower bud of the apple 
is a mixed bud, and to this fact we owe certain peculiarities in 
the growth of spurs to which attention must now be called. 
