CHAPTER XII 



* 



PRUNING TREES AND THINNING FRUIT 



It is not intended to enter into a discussion of the general theories 

 of pruning 1 . The reader desiring to pursue them is referred to the 

 abundant literature on the subject in Eastern and European treatises. 

 The effort to approve or condemn these theories by considering them 

 in the light of California experience and observation might lead to 

 interesting conclusions, but it has no place in a work aiming merely at 

 an exposition of what appears to be the most satisfactory practice in 

 California fruit growing. It will be found that this practice varies 

 somewhat in the different regions of California, sometimes in degree, 

 sometimes in kind,, because of different local conditions, and it might be 

 found that nearly all reasonable theories of pruning could be verified 

 in California experience. 



Pruning in California is at present almost exclusively a shaping pro- 

 cess. Our fruit trees are naturally so prone to bear fruit that pruning 

 to produce fruitfulness is seldom thought of, and still more rarely 

 practiced, while pruninng to reduce bearing wood, and thus decrease 

 the burden of the tree, is quite widely done, to take the place, in part, 

 of thinning out the fruit. Pruning to restore vigor to the tree, as in 

 cutting it back to induce a new wood growth, is also rather a rare pro- 

 ceeding, but probably could be much more widely employed to ad- 

 vantage. We prune, then, for shape and for the many practical ad- 

 vantages which adhere in the form now prevailing in California 

 orchards. Some of these advantages are peculiar to our climate ; others 

 we share with those who advocate a similar form elsewhere. 



Our best orchards of the same fruits in adjacent localities are 

 almost identical in form and general appearance of the trees, and those 

 more distant differ chiefly in the extent to which the same principles 

 are applied. And this is not because the trees are allowed to follow 

 their natural inclination, which should secure resemblance but because 

 their natural bent is resolutely conquered by agreement of growers 

 that they know what is good for the tree ; and this substantial unanim- 

 ity is the result of the experience of the last fifty-five years. People 

 possessed of the art temperament sometimes complain of the depressing 

 uniformity and artificiality of orchard-tree shapes in California. They 

 are apt to lament the fact that systematic orcharding destroys the pic- 

 turesqueness of tree-growth. They should understand that such con- 

 ception of a fruit tree has no place in commercial fruit growing. The 

 producing tree is the result of the conception of an agency to serve 

 certain purposes. The orchardist does not pursue uniformity merely 

 for its own sake, but rather for the purpose it serves, and the fact that 

 many thinking men have practically agreed upon a certain form as an 

 ideal of producing ability is demonstration that such form is, at least, 

 approximately correct. There is an industrial conception of a tree, 



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