274 Plums and Plum Culture 



dense, thick, thorny heads, into which it is sometimes 

 difficult for a picker to penetrate. Nevertheless, se- 

 vere pruning of these varieties is seldom practiced. 

 They do not seem to respond well to it. I do not 

 know a single grower who prunes his native plum 

 trees so severely as apple trees are habitually pruned. 

 The idea seems to prevail that the less one can get 

 along with the better. This has not been so much 

 the subject of careful experiment as it ought to be; but 

 the author feels constrained to give his advice in sup- 

 port of this common feeling. Of course, broken, split- 

 ting, and interfering branches should always be re- 

 moved, and just as early as possible. 



Certain native varieties grow in very poor forms. 

 The trees are crooked, straggling or ungainly. Such 

 habits must be corrected as much as possible by prun- 

 ing, depending in each case on the peculiarities 

 of the variety. It is to be expected that, in the 

 evolution of plum culture with the native varieties, 

 those sorts of ugly growth will be eventually elim- 

 inated. It has been so with apples, even though the 

 reason and the opportunity for it are much less than 

 with plums. 



A few very rank and sprawling growers, like Bur- 

 bank, demand severe heading-in every year. I have 

 often seen Burbank trees bearing loads of fruit and 

 making an annual growth of six feet, or in some cases 

 even more. The best growers that I know cut 

 back this annual growth from one-half to three-fourths. 

 It will be seen that even with this cutting back, the 

 trees will sometimes get beyond bounds. If they do 

 not, they will still be filled with the spurs and stumps 

 left by the knife and saw. It would seem desirable, 

 therefore, with such varieties as Burbank, to adopt 

 some renewal method of pruning as is practiced with 

 grapevines. This seems entirely feasible, though I 



