Heading -in Fruit Trees. 293 



of unrest which is apt to be fatal to the best produc- 

 tiveness. 



The question of heading -in of trees is one which 

 is commonly misunderstood, and upon which there is 

 the greatest demand for information. It is impossible 

 to give any dogmatic statements as to whether the 

 operation shall be practiced or not. There are two 

 or three considerations which the grower should 

 chiefly bear in mind, which may help him to think 

 out the problem for himself. In the first place, it is 

 largely a question of the type of training which the 

 grower prefers : that is, every good fruit-grower will 

 set before himself a certain ideal type or form of 

 tree, and he will bend all his energies uniformly and 

 consecutively to the working out of this idea through- 

 out all the years of the plantation. If his ideal is 

 for trees which shall have round and dense heads, 

 then he will, of course, head -in the stock from year 

 to year ; if, however, he sets for himself the ideal 

 of a tree with the natural form and open head, he 

 will not head -in, as a rule. Whichever purpose the 

 grower sets in his mind should be worked out sys- 

 tematically and logically from first to last. The 

 other factor which chiefly determines the question of 

 heading -in is that of redundant growth whilst the 

 plants are young. As a rule, young trees grow 

 more thrifty and upright than old ones do, and the 

 grower should, therefore, not be misled into thinking 

 that his trees will keep up their present pace after 

 they have come into maturity and bearing. Kieffer 

 pears, for example, make a very tall and narrow 



