PRUNING 23 



is at all dry. Unless this is carefully attended to, it is 

 almost a hopeless task to attempt to establish spring 

 planted trees upon a hungry soil. A good mulch 

 of short farmyard manure is of incalculable benefit 

 in such a case. Upon heavy land there is not the same 

 tendency for the spring-planted apple tree to suffer 

 from want of water, and, if the autumn were unusually 

 wet, it would be just as well planted in the spring on 

 soil of a retentive nature. Generally speaking, how- 

 ever, autumn planting is much to be preferred, and 

 upon comparatively dry and hungry soils may be said to 

 be almost absolutely essential to success. 



PRUNING 



The pruning of the apple tree, no less than the 

 planting of it, is a most important cultural detail, and 

 unless a certain amount of skill and knowledge is 

 brought to bear on its performance, more harm than 

 good may result. The operator must first have a true 

 conception of the purpose of pruning, and this, put into 

 few words, is properly to regulate the balance between 

 fruit and foliage, so that neither the one nor the other 

 preponderate, to train the tree in such a manner that 

 each shoot is allowed sufficient room to develop, and 

 the outline of the particular form of tree in question is 

 ensured. All who have to do with symmetrically trained 

 trees in gardens, or with the more free-growing stand- 

 ards in grass orchards, will know that each one must 

 be trained so as to preserve its true design, not so much 

 for the sake of appearance, as to be able to make the 

 most of the space available. It is very evident that 

 if one has a row of apple trees, and the branches are 

 allowed to grow in all directions, not only will much 

 valuable space be wasted in certain quarters, but the 

 branches will be much crowded in others. The first 



