habit of annual bearing in the trees. I think that every or- 

 ohardist has an idea of his own as to just how a tree should 

 I e pruned. Some of them cut the head of the tree about 

 lialf off; others prune very lightly or not much at all. What 

 effect does this have on the tree ? Severe pruning in 99 

 cases out of a hundred has a tendency toward reproducing 

 itself in wood again. You have throA\Ti the tree all out of 

 balance, all out of harmony by severe prmiing at any one 

 time, or in any one season. Now, this should be avoided by 

 I>runing a little every year so as to be able to maintain — 

 keep this idea in mind — this balance between wood growth 

 and fruit. So the tree should be pruned, as I say, just a 

 little every year, keeping the trees thinned out so that the 

 simlight and air can pass through the tree, and in this way 

 ;vou will not affect the balance but a very little by this light 

 pruning. 



Now, the next factor would be spraying, and let me say 

 right here that every one of these orchard practises or fac- 

 tors are so vitally connected or related to each other, that 

 to neglect one of them or even carry any one of them to ex- 

 cess has a tendency to throw the whole proposition out of 

 balance again; so we must consider them collectively. Pro- 

 vided we prune the tree properly and neglect to spray to 

 protect it against the sucking and leaf eating insects and 

 fungus diseases, we have probably defeated the very object 

 with which we started out in our orchard work. I thought 

 years ago that it would be a very good idea to eliminate the 

 dormant spray on a certain block of trees. I wanted to find 

 out whether it would pay, since we do not have the San Jose 

 scale in Maine, whether it would pay to live up to this dor- 

 mant spray annually, with the result that the Blister Mite, 

 which we have to quite an extent in Maine, had defoliated 

 those trees badly by the middle of August, which had a 

 tendency to injure them tremendously and interfere with 

 their bearing qualities. So it is necessary that we carry 

 through all these orchard practices as a matter of insurance 

 to maintain this balance between Avood growth and fruit. 



