160 THE PRINCIPLES OF PRUNING 



as shown by the several short bars; the treat- 

 ment may be a combination of these two. One 

 thing is clear: the tree now has too many branches 

 for its size, and some of them (say half of the 

 secondary ones) should be cut away. Whether 

 any further, heading -in shall be done, is a local 

 question. If the tree is making a growth of 

 three feet or more, heading- in would probably be 

 advisable. This heading -in tends to make the 

 branches thick and stocky, thereby enabling them 

 to support the forthcoming crops of fruit. As 

 the tree approaches maturity, heading- in may be 

 less frequent and less severe, and it may even- 

 tually cease. 



To every one who contemplates the cutting -back 

 of trees, it should be said that heading -in neces- 

 sitates more pruning in the interior of the top 

 This is particularly true of early summer prun 

 ing, which often causes new lateral growths to 

 become so numerous as to be very troublesome 

 (as, for example, in summer pruning of grapes). 



The writer, then, believes in heading-in vig- 

 orous young fruit trees of very strong -growing 

 varieties, for the purpose of inducing a stockier 

 growth of the branches and of promoting the 

 early branching of the main or scaffold limbs. 

 As the tree increases in age, the heading-in 

 should be less and less, and should generally 

 cease when full bearing arrives. If the mature 

 tree grows too rapidly, the fundamental correc- 



