QUALITY CROPS EVERY YEAR 



should be painted. Cuts should be made close to trunks or 

 limbs and parallel with them. 



Watch trees expanding and growing. Live with them. 

 Train them as you would a child. It is tree nature to develop 

 the fewest possible fruit buds you want them to develop the 

 greatest possible number after the trees are big enough. The 

 way to take advantage of every possible inch of tree growth is 

 to direct it often in the way you want it to go work over trees 

 several times a year 



Quality Fruit, Crops Every Year 



CULTIVATION, pruning and spraying will cause fruit 

 trees to set heavy crops regularly, and, even if neglected, 

 trees will load their limbs to the ground every three or 

 four years. Here is a danger that, when not guarded against, 

 will defeat the purpose which all orchard work is intended to 

 accomplish. 



We care for fruit trees in order to get as much as possible 

 of the finest grade of fruit. Now, trees will not bear every 

 year if they are allowed to mature all the fruit they set, or all 

 that does not drop off naturally; nor will they produce much 

 except small, inferior fruit. 



An apple tree will start twice as many little apples as it 

 is capable of "raising." A peach tree usually sets ten times the 

 number of peaches that it can develop and mature properly. 

 Other fruits will act in the same way. Because of this growers 

 must thin their fruit. 



We may compare the habits of trees to certain facts in the ani- 

 mal kingdom. If a flock of Wyandotte hens are fed right and 

 housed properly, and if their eggs are taken from them every 

 day, they will keep on laying, summer and winter. But if these 

 same hens were allowed to keep their eggs they soon would 

 want to hatch. Each hen would lay a nestful of eggs, and then 

 would sit on them until her breast was nothing but skin and 

 bone. Probably she would raise, each season, two or three broods 

 of scraggy, lousy, nondescript chickens, which minks and hawks 

 could catch easily. It is the same with all animals. If they 

 breed to excess, they not only destroy their own bodies, but 

 their offspring are far from perfect. 



With trees, it is the production of seeds which uses up vital- 

 ity and plant food. If trees are allowed to develop and ripen 

 only a limited number of seeds, they will build large, flawless, 

 high-colored, rich-flavored fruit; moreover, they will produce 

 such crops every year. If they ripen too many seeds, they will 

 exhaust themselves and will produce only a small quantity 

 of perfect fruit. 



It takes a tree two or three years to develop an apple, pear, 

 plum, cherry, or other fruit, on wood old enough to bear. 

 (Grapes, peaches and quinces require one year.) We do not 



