l86 THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



horizontals (7). Upright growths, as a rule, are noticeable for wood formation, and 

 inclined or horizontal ones for fruit production. 



DISBUDDING. 



This may be regarded as a form of pruning, as it removes needless shoots, and it 

 certainly is an essential condition of good training. Shortening, branches to originate 

 growths, and bending them to secure form and fruitfulness, necessarily causes more shoots 

 to be made than are required, and if all were left, confusion would be created and a 

 disorderly fruitless tree. No growth should be allowed where there is not sufficient 

 space for the leaves to develop under full exposure to light, and when two or more 

 shoots are produced where one only is wanted, the superfluous growths must be 

 removed at an early stage, reserving the most promising and best situated. This work 

 requires to be done gradually, for every bud that is being developed maintains the sap 

 in circulation, and removing a number at once, especially in ungenial weather, when 

 vegetation is languid, may cause stagnation of the fluids and prove injurious to the health 

 of the tree. On the other hand, if the sap is active and there are four buds pushing 

 where one only is wanted to grow, removing three of them at the same time will divert 

 more sap into the one left than it is well prepared to receive ; but if two are taken off, 

 and those the smallest, the two left will not be prejudicially affected, as the sap liberated 

 readily finds other channels, and in the course of a few days the other shoot may be 

 removed without check to the roots or unduly flushing the growth left. Growth in the 

 branches stimulates the action of the roots ; consequently deferring disbudding until the 

 shoots are sufficiently long to be taken hold of with the finger and thumb, aids the 

 collecting of food from the soil, and gives the cultivator the advantage of selecting the 

 strongest or most perfectly-developing growths in the best positions. The shoots then 

 removed leave no wound of consequence, but if left until they become somewhat woody 

 at their base, the bark is liable to be torn. This induces gum in stone-fruit trees, and 

 canker in apples and pears. In all cases of removing woody growths the knife should 

 be used, a clean wound always healing better and more quickly than an uneven one. All 

 growths retained that must afterwards be cut out deprive those that ought only to have 

 been left, not only of vigour, but of the light and air that are essential to their solidi- 

 fication and fruitfulness. 



The process of disbudding, and the practical results of it, can only be made clear to 

 the uninitiated by the aid of illustrations. On a careful glance at Fig. 49 it will be seen 



