CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



and making selection from the many new shoots which appear, but 

 by proper regular pruning a tree can be so trained that the removal 

 of large limbs is seldom necessary. The times to prune the olive 

 are just after the gathering of the fruit or just before new growth 

 starts in the spring. 



Developing the Vase Form. Explicit suggestions as to the de- 

 velopment of a low, vase-form tree may be helpful to inexperienced 

 growers. The following is from a foreign writer, whose illustra- 

 tions are presented herewith: 



When the young tree has attained some height, it is the practice to cut 

 off the top, so that the main stem shall be about four and a half feet in 

 rich soil, or three feet in poor soil or in locations exposed to strong winds. 

 Six or eight branches are left to form the head. The process of shaping the 

 tree then proceeds as shown in the engravings. Fig. 1 shows the young 

 tree to be cut at the point marked by the dotted line C. Six branches, 

 three on each side, are left, and the lower twigs shortened. Each of the 

 branches left develops, during the year, as the one shown in Fig. 2, which 

 is then cut at C again, and the shoots B and D are shortened. This process 

 starts out the upper shoot, and appears the following year as A in Fig. 3, 

 and it is again cut at C. This causes the two upper shoots to develop, and 

 at the end of the year they appear as shown at BB in Fig. 4. Thus they 

 stand at the fourth year's pruning, and each of them is cut at C, and A is 

 shortened and D allowed to develop. By this time the tree has a spherical 

 or vase form, and exposes much surface to the sun, which is desirable. 



The young branches that spring in the form of a cross on the more 

 vigorous branches, bear only wood buds; the others, which are weaker, 

 bear fruit buds on their whole length and burst into blossom at the spring 

 of the second year. The latter never blossom again in the same place, but 

 the shoot extends itself and forms two lateral ones. These new shoots 

 bear the following spring, and so on. It must therefore be borne in mind 

 that the olive bears only on the two-year-old wood. If the new shoots are 

 formed every year, the olive will bear anually; but in years of good crops, 

 the sap employed to nourish the fruit only produces a number of very di- 

 minutive shoots, and the next crop is a short one. The pruning ought to 

 favor the growth of young lateral shoots, either by shortening the terminal 

 ones, suppressing the "gormand" or fruitless shoots, or by reducing in a 

 certain proportion, each year, the fruit-bearing shoots, if we wish tor a 

 crop every year. The shortening of a branch is made immediately above an 

 outside bud in an oblique direction, the interior one being suppressed. The 

 suckers at the root of the tree should be continually cut off. 



Concerning the time for pruning, the best season is said to be when the 

 winter frosts are well over and just before the sap starts in the spring. By 

 early pruning the sap is made to act upon the buds unfavorably situated on 

 the tree, brings them out, and also develops latent buds on the old wood. 

 Thus one is enabled to prevent the tree from becoming covered with naked 

 limbs. 



A suggestive outline of pruning policy by Prof. Bioletti, who 

 has given many years to handling of olive trees in California and to 

 observation of other operations, is as follows : 



At the end of the first growing season, no pruning is necessary except 

 the removal of strong shoots on the lower half of the stem where main 

 branches are not desirable. 



At the end of the second growing season, many trees will require no 

 pruning at all. Some, however, will have developed strong branches in 

 unsuitable places. These should be removed. Branches which cross from 

 one side to the other, branches which are too crowded, or which interfere 

 with the symmetry of the tree, or may interfere with cultivation, are mis- 



