1?38 THE CANADIAN HOKTICULTCKIST. 



large amount of small tender shoots, we might with truth say, a pro- 

 fusion of such shoots. Two-thirds at least of these shoots should be 

 removed by the knife in early spring. This process diminishes the- 

 amount of fruit buds, and leaves enough for the tree to perfect. For 

 want of this precaution, we have seen very beautiful peach orchards 

 have the fruit almost completely destroyed, or rendered worthless. 

 The trees are allowed to grow their branches so thick and close that 

 even where there is abundance of fruit it prematurely rots, and thus 

 the hopes of the husbandman are crushed. 



Pear trees, but not every variety,, are the better of close pruning. 

 In the case of the Belle Angevine, we have so short-pruned the branches, 

 that in the course of a few years the whole tree was one mass of fruit 

 spurs, and after a time the tree almost ceased to run to wood, its whole 

 effort apparently being to supply the fruit stems. And so of many 

 other varieties, notably the Flemish Beauty, Duchess d'Angouleme and 

 Belle Lucrative. We have always pruned in spring when carrying on 

 our fruit growing operations ; in the fall when experimenting on the 

 best season for the operation. In our climate, winter pruning reqniires 

 to be done over again, to remove the winter-kill at the point of excision. 

 The Beurre d'Amanlis, both the plain and the Panache variety, require 

 their branches to run like long arms, and then the tree will develop' 

 long strings of beautiful fruit, and so of some few other varieties. 

 Beurre Diel, White and Gray Doyenne, do' well under the shortening 

 process. In treating my pear trees, I always largely summer-prune. 

 I found, I think, the profit of this process in the fruitful result. I am 

 persuaded that the summer-pruned branch developed fruit buds, in 

 some instances, several seasons before they otherwise would on the 

 laissezfaire system. 



Spring is the best season for short-pruning the pear, and summer- 

 pruning after the "middle of July is almost a necessity. Gare should 

 be exercised not to summer-prune, until the spring growths have 

 attained their limit. 



Apple pruning is perhaps more important than the pruning of any 

 other fruit tree. It assumes importance from the comparative value 

 of the product. The apple crop of Ontario is incalculably valuable. 

 The right prosecution, therefore, of any process to increase that value 

 and^ profit is urgently demanded from us as fruit growers. There is 

 fixet the early pruning necessary for giving a right direction to the tree.- 



