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CALIFORNIA FRUITS ! HOW TO GROW THEM 



early bloom and fruit-setting are particularly threatened by frost, this 

 practice may be undesirable. 



Spring Pruning. Resting largely upon this matter of retarding 

 growth, the practice of pruning very late in the dormant period, or, 

 in fact, at the beginning of the growing season, is also gaining wider 

 adoption where frost injury is especially feared. It is not actual freez- 

 ing, but a drop of two or three degrees below the freezing point which 

 is feared, and during recent years such a temperature has wrought 

 havoc with some fruits, in early valley regions particularly. Later 

 pruning, even after the bloom and foliage have appeared, has worked 

 no injury to the trees, but it is less conveniently done than when the 

 trees are free of foliage. 





Young peach and apple trees, showing branches well spaced on the stems. 



Summer Pruning. Summer pruning, to induce bearing, is, as 

 has been previously intimated, but little employed in this State, for the 

 constant tendency of our trees is to bear early and to overbear. Enough 

 has, however, been done in individual cases to show that fruit-bearing 

 is promoted by pruning after the chief growth of the season has been 

 attained. If the pruning results in forcing out laterals late in the season 

 it has been done too early. What is desirable is the strengthening or 

 development of fruit buds, and this will be accomplished after the energy 

 has been too far dissipated to make new wood growth. 



Summer pruning to check the too exuberant wood growth of some 

 kinds of trees is employed to some extent, chiefly in the warmer parts 

 of the State, where the vegetative process in some trees seems fairly 

 to run riot, and unless checked is apt to ruin the tree by breaking* to 



