A Bulletin on Orchard Practice 



fested trees. If flowers appear only on the smaller growths 

 the diseased limbs can be cut out with little damaging results. 



The peach tree is a rapid and vigorous grower. The fruit 

 is always borne on wood grown the previous season. Fruit 

 spurs are not formed as in the case of the apple and pear. 

 One-year-old trees are the most desirable for planting. Most 

 growers prefer heading the trees only a little above the ground 

 line, with three or four main branches. The annual growths 

 are usually very long, and until the tree comes into full 

 bearing it is best to practice shortening back considerably each 

 annual growth earlv in the spring or late winter. In fact 

 the heading back process should always continue, to insure 

 compact, shapely trees and a uniform distribution of fruit. 

 Systematic annual pruning is much to be preferred to the 

 practice by many of neglecting to prune for a number of seas- 

 ons and after a few years starting a new head by cutting the 

 top back to a mere stump. Such cutting back seldom produces 

 satisfactory results. 



The cherry, and also the plum, should be pruned but very 

 little after a system of correct branching has been started. 

 Sometimes it happens that a vigorous side branch will start 

 and grow to excessive length in the young sweet cherry, and 

 plum. It is well to head back such branches in the growing 

 season to a proportionate length. Prune also to avoid the 

 formation of sharp crotches which are apt to separate in the 

 aged tree. Crotches are likely to form where two branches 

 of equal vigor are allowed to develop from the same point. 

 If one of them is headed back the effect will be a much stronger 

 union, because of the fact that one outgrows the other. 



Deep cultivation of the soil in orchards is in effect a sys- 

 tem of root pruning. It can be practiced to good effect among 

 trees inclined to heavy wood growth, as it encourages the for- 

 mation of fruit buds instead of wood. Where the object is to 

 stimulate wood growth cultivation should be very shallow and 

 frequent. Clean cultivation is always desirable whichever re- 

 sult is sought, that of wood growth or fruit production. 



