DISBUDDING. 67 



object of preserving trees furnished from bottom to 

 top with plenty of young bearing wood year after 

 year for a long series of years; the next to it has 

 been left also for the sake of a fruit-bud which is 

 connected with it. The terminal bud is retained 

 for the same reason. By the time the growths 

 have attained a length of about two inches they 

 may be finally disbudded to distances varying 

 according to available trellis space from ten to 

 twenty inches along the individual shoots, the, ex- 

 panded leaves on the young growths retained 

 affording sufficient outlet for the sap to circulate 

 freely and evenly through all the branches. I may 

 here emphasise the remark that heretofore it has been 

 the practice of cultivators and in other respects 

 good cultivators, too to annually preserve young 

 growths of the current year's make, regardless of the 

 fact, which they were fully cognisant of, that fifty 

 per cent, of same would have to be cut out 

 at pruning time, thereby needlessly wasting the 

 forces of the individual trees. The sooner this 

 foolish practice is relegated to oblivion the better, 

 cultivators bearing in mind, instead, that by prac- 

 tising a judicious course of disbudding and pinching 

 front growths back to one leaf, very little winter 

 pruning, beyond cutting out an equal number of the 

 previous year's growth to make room for those of 

 the current year's make, is necessary. 



