2 DWARF FRUIT TREES 



(2) repressive pruning, and (3) training to some pre- 

 scribed form. 



DWARFING STOCKS 



The most common and important means of secur- 

 ing dwarf trees is that of propagating them on dwarf- 

 ing stocks. These are simply such roots as make a 

 slower and weaker growth than the trees from which 

 cions are taken. This will be understood better from 

 a concrete example. The quince tree normally grows 

 slower than the pear, and usually reaches about half 

 the size at maturity. Now pear cions will unite read- 

 ily with quince roots and will grow in good health 

 for many years. But when a pear tree is thus de- 

 pendent for daily food on a quince root it fares like 

 Oliver Twist. It never gets enough. It is always 

 starved. It makes considerably less annual growth, 

 and never (or at least seldom) reaches the size which 

 it might have reached if it had been growing on a 

 pear root. 



This is, somewhat roughly stated, the whole theory 

 of dwarfing fruit trees by grafting them on slow- 

 growing stocks. The tree top is always under-nour- 

 ished and thus restrained in its ambitious orowth of 

 branches, as seen in Fig. i 



While the tree is made thus smaller by being grafted 

 on a restraining root, it is not affected in its other 

 characteristics. At least theoretically it is not. It 

 still bears the same kind of fruit and foliage. Bart- 

 lett pear trees budded on quince roots yield fruit true 

 to name. The pears are still Bartletts, and can not 

 be told from those grown on an ordinary tree. Some- 



