96 POMOLOGY 



respects, as they showed that trees carelessly planted and 

 the soil rammed about the roots produced a greater growth 

 than those set in the "orthodox" way. No injurious effect 

 resulted from planting trees with mangled or broken roots, 

 provided a reasonable portion of the root system was left 

 intact. Neither did the huddling of the roots into a small 

 hole have any apparent effect. The conclusion is drawn that 

 trimming of the roots is altogether unimportant, the omis- 

 sion having sometimes one effect and sometimes another.^ 



83. Pruning young versus mature trees. — The problem 

 of pruning the yomig tree is essentially different from that 

 of pruning the mature one so far as purpose is concerned, 

 but the basic principles remain the same. In the first place, 

 the great essential is properly to select the future scaffold 

 branches and prune consistently to develop the type of tree 

 selected as the ideal. The first three or four years of the 

 apple and pear and the first two years of the peach tree rep- 

 resent the formative or vegetative period in which the chief 

 aim of the grower should be to develop a well-formed speci- 

 men, regardless of fruit-spurs or buds. The tree then enters 

 a period when it is desirable to consider the growth of fruit- 

 ing wood, and with the apple and pear it means a cessation 

 of a systematic cutting back of the terminals and usually as 

 little pruning as possible. This, of course, does not mean that 

 small rubbing branches and water-sprouts should not be 

 removed or that a long rangy branch should not be sup- 



The tree next passes into the period of fruitage when the 

 type of pruning will develop very largely into a thinning- 

 out process with the apple and pear but also heading-back 

 with the peach. As trees of the former fruits become older 

 and larger, it will often be desirable also to head-back some 



^ Bedford, Duke of, and Spencer Pickering. Science and Fruit 

 Growing. London, 1919. Ch. 4 and 5. 



