PRUNING 



83 



Table XII 



EFFECT OF PRUNING ON EARLY BEARING (AFTER ALDERMAN AND AUCIITER) 



In these experiments, more mature trees were also treated 

 with the result that the heaviest pruned yielded more fruit 

 than the lightly pruned ones. However, the trees were 

 reported as in poor condition (making only four inches of 

 terminal growth) and hence the data are not considered so 

 relial^le as in the cases of younger trees. 



76. Effect of the unequal cut. — A common weakness 

 in the framework of the tree is a sharp-angled crotch or 

 fork wherein one branch of the fork is about equal to the 

 other in size. This produces a condition which is likely 

 later to result in a poor type of development and a breaking 

 of the tree. This can be avoided by the "unequal cut"; 

 that is, by not cutting back the two branches of such a fork 

 equally, but by making one decidedly shorter than the other 

 so as to suppress its development and make it subordinate 

 to the longer one which becomes a leader. By this method, 

 a much stronger tree can be built. 



On first thought this principle would not seem to be in 

 harmony with the obsei-ved fact — which is discussed later— 

 that there is a stimulation to vigorous growth at the point 

 where the cut is made. An explanation seems available, 

 however, to account at least in part for the effect of the vni- 

 equal cut. The case is at once different from one in which 



