VASE FORM WITHOUT CUTTING BACK m 



is selected the following summer to make desirable branchings all 

 other shoots being tip-pinched to make a few leaves. After the 

 leaders are well located in sufficient number, cutting back ceases and 

 these main branches are kept properly clothed with bearing wood 

 by thinning out supernumerary spurs and laterals and by pinching 

 undesirable shoots during the growing season.* 



The method seems to be an improvement and extension to other 

 deciduous fruits of the practice which has long been roughly fol- 

 lowed in this State with apples, cherries, prunes and almonds which 

 have for many years not been cut back after the young tree was 

 properly headed and branched. It does however attach more im- 

 portance to the dominance of main branches proceeding continu- 

 ously and not zigzagging so much as in the common vase form. It 

 also aims to preserve a more open center and by admitting light to 

 the interior faces of the main branches to promote the growth of 

 fruiting shoots or spurs upon them with good foliage which will not 

 only give protection from sunburn, but will serve the future vigor 

 and bearing of the tree much better than the robber-growth of 

 multiple sprouts from cut-back branches. Too dense new growth 

 is eliminated by thinning out shoots rather than by cutting back, 

 and the growth of such supernumerary shoots is checked by 

 summer-pinching. Dr. Whitten's belief is that by growing such 

 main branches with such development of foliage there will be 

 secured not only more and better fruit, but also a stronger tree to 

 carry it, and at the date of this edition (October, 1921,) he is antici- 

 pating from many orchard trials that his expectations, which are 

 based upon protracted research both in plant physiology and orchard 

 practice, will be realized. In due time, no doubt, the results of his 

 faith and works will be published by the University of California, 

 of which he heads the Division of Pomology. The current danger 

 seems to be that growers of trees may mistake his advocacy of not 

 cutting-back as equivalent to non-pruning, while it is, in fact, a 

 claim for more elaborate, careful and intelligent pruning. Among 

 questions to be decided are the acceptance by the tree of the method 

 as best ministering to its requirements under cultural bondage and 

 the availability of the method to the comprehension of the army of 

 employes to whom the pruning of our vast acreage of commercial 

 orchards must be entrusted. Evidently the method must be fol- 

 lowed in all essential details of its principles and practices to secure 

 the results claimed for it. 



Characteristic of the Common Vase Form. This vase form 

 which has been so widely and uniformly developed in this State that 

 it has been called the "California 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 in- 

 heres in the design. 



*An excellent account, with details and illustrations, of starting trees toward a system 

 of "longer pruning" with little cutting back after attainment of bearing age, is given in 

 Bulletin 313, University of California Experiment Station by Prof. Warren F. Tufts. 



