YOUNG TREES 135 



Actual Pruning. Now let us sally forth with our newly 

 acquired pruning tools and do some actual pruning. Every 

 different tree will prove to be a different problem. This is one 

 thing that makes pruning interesting. It is not the province 

 of this chapter to suggest all the types of problems that the 

 pruner will encounter. Two of these will have to suffice. 



Young Trees. The first is the young tree. Like training 

 children this is the most important and the most difficult stage. 

 At the time of setting, the tree is given a severe pruning as out- 

 lined in chapter four. The next season and for several years 

 thereafter something like the following program is followed: 



First. The head of the tree is examined to see that the main 

 branches are satisfactory in number and in position. There ought 

 to be from three to five of these main scaffold branches and they 

 should be well distributed about the. tree, not coming out at the 

 same height and not too many of them on any one side. This 

 is a more serious problem than some might think, particularly 

 with certain varieties such as the Wealthy apple, which do not 

 tend to form good heads naturally. It will require ten times 

 the effort on this one point to shape up satisfactorily a block 

 of Wealthy trees that it will to develop a similar block of Mc- 

 Intosh trees. In any case, but particularly with wayward 

 growers, it is well worth while to look after this matter of main 

 branches during the growing season, and it ought to be settled 

 just as early in the life of the tree as possible. Yet with all one's 

 care it often happens that branches simply will not develop in 

 the right place at the start, and the pruner must keep at the tree 

 until he gets a reasonably satisfactory top. Frequently he has 

 to forego a scaffold branch at one point and train out secondary 

 branches from adjoining main branches to supply the deficiency. 



Second. Examine the leaders, particularly the leaders in the 

 top of the tree, and shorten them in, if they need it, as they 

 usually do. In most cases the side leaders may be allowed to 

 grow as much as they will, for at this stage one wants to develop 

 a good big tree. It is only with such sprawling growers as the 

 Burbank plum that one needs to head back the side leaders. 



