■10- 



Figure 2. Spartan trees planted in 1964; picture taken March, 

 1979 after pruning height of the tree on right has 

 been gradually lowered since 1976. The height- 

 reduced trees now average 9 ft. in comparison to 

 11.4 ft. on the control trees. 



On both the control and height - lowered trees some of the 

 stronger branches in the top third of the trees were removed 

 or their length restricted by cutting to a weak lateral branch. 

 A few water sprouts were retained and spread for replacements 

 of pruned vigorous branches. Thus, we have developed a branch 

 rotation program which consists of removing large branches in 

 the top third of the tree and leaving weak branches which 

 turn will be removed when they become largei" (Figure 1). 



in 



