23 



fin orchard fertilizer. It may do very well this year to sup- 

 ply some potash. 



MR. POWELL : Mr. Conaut spoke of his practise of 

 pruning; does that mean thinning out the tree or bringing 

 it back? 



MR, CONANT: It means thinning out. There are al- 

 v.'ays ci'oss limbs developing in an apple tree. I find them 

 so under my conditions, and it is simply thinning those cross 

 jimbs out at the ends. For instance, the Northern Spy will 

 broom out at the ends of the limbs, will get real thick ; it is 

 thinning out these broomy ends of the trees so they won't 

 be thick and mat down one over the other. 



MR. POWELL: In pruning in your orchard, do you 

 have to keep cutting back the annual growth, or is it merely 

 a process of thinning out through the tree? 



MR. CONANT : With me that would depend quite a lot 

 on the variety. I have a young Spy orchard set in 1912, 

 yearling trees, and I make a practise of cutting them back 

 every year. They are making a very rapid growth, and if 

 not cut back, they would look like English poplars, growing 

 right up to the sky. By heading them back and giving them 

 a foot of growth each year, they start out laterals, and in 

 that way I have been getting a slower, better head for an 

 orchard than to let them run. If I had not cut them back, 

 the laterals would come out at the end of a year's growth 

 and have a tendency to build the tree up in the air. With 

 some varieties it is necessary to cut them back ; with others 

 it may not be. The variety and the amount of wood groAvth 

 should be taken into account in every case. 



A ^MEMBER : Referring to the question I asked regard- 

 ing thinning — it seems to me that the practise has become 

 i.o general now among the large, high-class apple growers, 

 that, perhaps, someone else here may have something to say 

 regarding the practise, whether it should be done. 



THE CHAIRMAN: I was hoping that question would 

 come up, but it is one of our definite questions on the list, 

 8.nd I was not thinking for forcing it; as we have discussed 



