PRUNING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR FRUITS 459 



vide full crops less attention need be given to obtaining new spurs. Some 

 of the old spurs die out or are lost through accident and new spurs are 

 needed tore place them and of course the numbers increase as the tree 

 grows older. Usually, however, more spurs form than the tree can 

 support to advantage and it is only in the tree between 4 and 6 or 8 years 

 of age that there is need of definite effort to encourage their development. 



Very rarely do new spurs form directly on the old wood from either 

 latent or adventitious buds. In case the spurs in the lower-interior part 

 of the tree die out or are destroyed the only way to develop new spurs in 

 that region is to prune back the top of the tree somewhat heavily. This 

 will force out watersprouts from latent or adventitious buds. At the 

 same time there should be enough thinning out to permit free access 

 of sunlight and thus promote the development of large leaves and large 

 lateral buds which a year later may develop into fruit spurs. These 

 watersprouts are then treated in very much the same way as the tops of 

 trees just coming into bearing; the same may be recommended for the 

 strong vigorous growth in trees recently "dehorned" or recently 

 top worked. 



Retaining Spurs Already Established. — Since the spurs of the apple 

 and pear bear fruit repeatedly they should obviously be retained as 

 long as they remain efficient producers. Yet many growers remove 

 them unnecessarily at the time of pruning or permit their useless destruc- 

 tion by careless pickers. In some varieties particularly, as for example 

 the Esopus (Spitzenburg) apple, new spurs do not readily develop to 

 replace the old, because of the difficulty in obtaining sucker growth in 

 the interior of the tree; hence the loss of any considerable number of 

 spurs is likely to render those portions of the tree permanently barren. 

 There is often occasion for prmiing out some of the fruiting wood of the 

 apple and pear; however, this should be done with caution and with a 

 clear understanding of the problems involved in replacing it. The 

 advisability of much thinning of the crop by means of pruning is ques- 

 tionable in these fruits. The ultimate result of the loss of spurs from 

 the interior and lower portions of the tree is the forcing out and up of 

 its bearing surface. Eventually the active fruiting wood will be around 

 the outside and in the top of the tree with the major portion of the interior 

 unproductive. When a crop is so distributed, its weight places the 

 greatest possible strain upon the crotches and the tree is subject to 

 greatest injury from storms and winds. Much of the breakage in the 

 older orchards is associated with this condition, which can be largely 

 avoided by thinning out which limits the formation of new fruit spurs and 

 at the same time keeps the older spurs productive. 



Keeping Spurs Strong and Vigorous. — The superiority of vigorous 

 fruit spurs over those that are weak has been mentioned repeatedly. 

 They flower and set fruit more frequently and are much more likely to 



