62 BEGINNERS' GUIDE TO FRUIT GROWING 



tree. On the other hand, if pruning is done when 

 the tree is in full growth, as in June, the growth of 

 the tree is correspondingly checked. 



These considerations raise the question of sum- 

 mer pruning. Can pruning, then, be done in the 

 summer as well as in winter and spring? As a 

 matter of fact, for certain purposes it can be done 

 much better. Summer pruning is a practice by no 

 means sufficiently understood by American fruit 

 growers, and still less sufficiently practiced. We 

 may accept it as a fact that at least one-half the 

 pruning of fruit trees now given in winter and early 

 spring could much better be given in June. In 

 shaping young trees summer pruning and pinching 

 is much more effective than winter pruning; and in 

 the management of old trees summer pruning has 

 the great advantage that it is not so much followed 

 by a troublesome growth of suckers. Summer 

 pruning comes into play in inducing trees of five to 

 ten years' growth to come earlier into bearing. 



There are other practical advantages in summer 

 pruning, such as the fact that small wounds then 

 heal more readily ; or that the operator has a better 

 chance to judge the growth of the tree and to locate 

 dead branches ; or, finally, that the labor is more 

 easily performed than during the winter season. 



THE TIME TO PRUNE 



The question of the best season for pruning has 

 always had a lively argumentative interest among 

 fruit men, but the annual debates on the matter have 

 been more valuable as an intellectual entertain- 

 ment than as a settlement of horticultural practices. 

 The old saying, that "the time to prune is when the 



