17 



luay have some iuHuenee ou auiiual bearing, provided this 

 thinning is done early enough in the season. 



^IR. COOK : You gave us a very interesting account of 

 your treatment of a block of trees ; was the system that you 

 applied there the one you spoke of generally? 



MK. CONANT : Yes sir. 



31K. COOK : May I ask if you ever applied the same 

 system to any other kind of trees? 



MR. CONANT : I started in at a later date, with another 

 block of trees, part Baldwins and part Rhode Island Green- 

 ings. Unfortunately, this freeze last Spring cleared every- 

 thing oft', so that I hadn't anything really worth while to 

 give you, I have not continued the system long enough, and 

 having lost the crop by frost this year has materially inter- 

 fered with it, so that it will be a term of years yet before I 

 have determined anything definite as regards the bearing 

 habits of these other trees under that system. 



:\1R. A. H. WEEKS : I would like to ask Mr. Conant— 

 in this system of pruning every year, as I understand it, 

 ctoes he believe that if he had one pruning heavier one year 

 than another, would he have it in a dormant year or a heavy 

 bearing year? I want to knoAV whether they should have 

 the severe pruning during the heavy bearing year or the 

 other year. 



MR. CONANT: I would say in answer to that question 

 that I'd rather advise pruning lightly every year, because 

 it gets to be an annual thing. I think if you let it go over 

 one year, you are apt to take out too much the next, but if 

 it is an annual thing you would simply take out the small 

 hmbs and it does not affect the balance of the tree to any 

 great extent ; it is not a shock to the tree, and there is a 

 tendency on the part of a great many of our orchardists. by 

 letting it go over every other year, to do too severe pruning 

 on some trees, at least. 



A 3IEMBER: I would like to ask what kind of cover 

 crop you used on this block of trees and whether it was 

 l>]owed under the same Autiunn or the following Spring? 



