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CALIFORNIA FRUITS : HOW TO GROW THEM 



as the "common vase form." Another, which is gaining in popularity, 

 aims to grow leaders trained along in directions first chosen for them, 

 and this will be described as the "vase form with continuous leaders." 

 The latter method aims to secure more open centers and to produce 

 fruit nearer to the leaders or, as one may call them, the ribs of the 

 tree the figure having a rough resemblance to the ribs of an inverted 

 umbrella rather than the ribs of a man. 



Characteristic of the Common Vase Form. This vase form is 

 a product of French ingenuity in the training of dwarf trees, but it has 

 undergone very marked modification in California, losing much of the 

 accuracy of its outline and gaining vastly in speed of work and in 

 bearing capacity of tree without sacrificing any practical value which 

 adheres in the design. 



This vase form dispenses with the central stem or trunk at a certain 

 short distance above the ground, but this is not done for the purpose of 

 securing a hollow or open-center tree, which is a leading characteristic 

 of the old European vase form. The few branches which are desired to 

 grow from the short stem are pruned when the tree is young to induce 

 successive branching with short interspaces. At each cutting the aim is 

 to get two branches from one, and nearly as posible of equal vigor, so 

 the California tree does not, except, of course, in occasional instances, 

 show the outline of a leader from the bottom to the top, but there is a 

 succession of branchings, turned this way or that by the skillful pruner, 

 occupying available air space, distributing the weight so it comes more 

 nearly over the center of gravity and at the same time knitting the 

 fibers of the branch so that the weight of the fruit is well sustained. 

 This idea, however, is not allowed to go so far as to wholly close the 



Forms of head resulting from cutting back. 



Twelve-year-old apple tree in the writer's garden in Berkeley, showing forms of head 

 resulting from cutting back for greater and less spacing of main branches at planting. 



