i68 



THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



excluded ; and obviously, if the rampant growths are cut closely back in winter there 

 is nothing left for bearing. The left side of the tree teaches a very different lesson. 

 The need of winter pruning there is of the slightest, because and this is the vital 

 point in the case no superfluous growths were permitted to elongate, to crowd 

 and spoil each other, and to produce a fruitless tree. On the contrary the main 

 branches were thinly disposed, the side-growths on them cut back in summer, and the 

 ends of the branches shortened in autumn. The sun can shine through a tree thus 

 managed, and every leaf thus acted on becomes, so to say, a manufacturer of fruit by 

 storing assimilated matter in the solidified stems. Blossom buds then form, the fruit- 

 fulness of the tree being also facilitated by the action of the sun on the soil, and 



Fig. 41. PRUNING. CAUSE AND EFFECT. A LESSON FOR LEARNERS. (For references, see text.) 



the roots are not of a nature to force a further extension of long, sappy, useless, soil- 

 exhausting growths. 



But though the results of good and bad management are apparent in the tree, the 

 details for producing them are not, except to the initiated ; they are made plain, however, 

 in the enlarged branch (Fig. 41). Example 1 shows a side-shoot unstopped, with 

 some of the upper buds started in consequence of the excessive supply of sap. This 

 shoot, cut back to a few buds near the base in the winter, as indicated by the bar, 

 pushes a number of useless growths the following summer, nothing being formed but 

 wood buds on long shoots as represented in 2. A similar summer shoot from the same 

 branch is shown in 3, pinched in summer at the top bar, which may give rise to laterals 

 from the upper buds left, as indicated by the dotted lines ; but the lower buds having 

 the sap concentrated upon them, and this not excessive, they form rounder and bolder 



