HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT 



The first few years of a tree's life should be given up almost 

 entirely to building a frame on which to bear crops. Disap- 

 pointed branchlets along the inside limbs may produce a few 

 fruits, but until the tree is rather large it should devote its 

 energies to growing. After the tree is large enough, however, 

 fruit-bearing is the thing for it to do, and more growth should 

 be discouraged. On the ideal tree there should be just enough 

 new growth to replace annual wear and tear. Of course more 

 will grow, and this will have to be cut back or the trees will 

 become too large, meanwhile neglecting the work of fruit- 

 producing. What you want to do is to disappoint the great 

 majority of buds, and thus make them change their leaf and 

 branch buds to fruit buds. 



This checking of the growth can be accomplished by tip- 

 ping back each season's growth a certain amount, depending 

 on the kind of tree. The very best time to do it is after the 

 fruit has set tightly, as you are thinning. Trees stop their 

 season's growth much earlier than is ordinarily supposed, 

 and if you cut off half or mo~e of the length of the shoots some 

 time in June or July, you throw the energies of the tree into 

 the forming of the fruit. As your tree is big enough, you do 

 not need more wood, so the various processes work together. 

 In the same way, all summer pruning makes for fruit-bearing 

 and fruit-developing. If you were to prune large trees in the 

 winter, the sap, when it came in the spring, immediately would 

 go to replacing this wood, thus giving each remaining bud 

 a better chance of becoming a branch, its first desire, and lessen- 

 ing the number and vigor of those buds that devote th imselves 

 to producing fruit. (Wounds made in winter and subjected 

 to freezing require twice as long to heal as summer wounds, 

 and many never heal properly.) We recommend that pears 

 and apples, especially, be tipped back in June. 



Fruit buds usually are thicker and more blunt than leaf 

 buds. In winter you can distinguish them easily by their 

 appearance. The aim should be to have as many fruit buds 

 scattered all over the trees as possible. There should be no 

 long stretches of bare limbs. To make fruit spurs, merely pinch 

 off the end buds of little branches, instead of cutting the whole 

 branches off close to the limbs from which they grow. If you 

 do this, and afterward avoid breaking the spurs thus formed, 

 you will have fruit all over the tree, and these spurs never will 

 get much bigger than they need to be to support two or three 

 fruits. 



This brings up a point that must be remembered. Apples, 

 pears, cherries, plums, etc., bear their fruit only on wood that is 

 two or more years old. Peaches bear only on one-year-old wood, 

 while American grapes and quinces bear on wood of the same 

 season's growth. When you prune always remember how old 

 the fruit spur must be in order to bear, and arrange in advance 

 for the formation of more and more fruit spurs. As explained 

 in the thinning chapter, two or three years are required to 

 develop most fruit buds (excepting peach and grape) to the 

 point where they blossom. Unless careful thinning and growth- 



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