43 



found in the commercial orchards of the east. For New 

 England, where the maximum amount of sunshine is neces- 

 sary to develop fruit of high color, this seems to be the most 

 desirable type. If carefully growTi and properly tramed, 

 and if the trees are not allowed to overbear, there is not 

 likely to be much trouble from the breaking of the branches. 

 In order to develop a strong open-center habit, we must 

 have a good nursery tree to start with. We hear a great 

 deal nowadays about the desirability of growing low headed 

 trees and I am a strong advocate of such practice, but I do 

 not believe in heading them so low that there is no room for 

 the proper distribution of the main or scaffold limbs of the 

 tree. Many nurserymen are making a mistake in "rub- 

 bing" their trees too high; by this I mean that all the buds 

 ?nd shoots are rubbed off from the yearling tree to a point 

 six or eight inches below the point where the tree is headed 

 in. If the practice is to head a tree thirty inches from the 

 ground, the "rubbing" should not extend more than twelve 

 ij.ehes from the ground leaving a space of eighteen inches 

 for the proper distribution of the scaffold limbs of which 

 there should be from three to five. These should be fairly 

 evenly spaced along the central axis and no more than one 

 should be allowed to develop at the same point. 



An apple tree is a wonderfully tractable object when 

 handled properly. The man who follov/s the ordinary prac- 

 tice of severely pruning during the dormant season, only, is 

 going to have trouble for the more he prunes at this season 

 of the year the more persistent the tree becomes. To en- 

 courage the development of the weaker growing branches 

 and to check the persistence of the stronger ones, it is neces- 

 sary to do some pruning during the growing season. This 

 subject will be discussed more fully under the head of Sum- 

 mer Pruning. 



GROWING THE YOUNG TREE. 

 I believe that in the past we have grown our trees too 

 last and have pruned them a great deal too much. To de- 

 velop a strong fruit-bearing structure, a tree should not be 



