PRUNING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR FRUITS 461 



other words heading back should be done principally for the purpose 

 of training, thinning out serving principally to affect its bearing habits. 



Suminarij of Usual Pruning Treatment. — Briefly, the general pruning 

 treatment recommended for the apple and the pear, considering their 

 growing and bearing habits and their I'csponses to different types of prun- 

 ing, may be stated as follows: During the first few years in the orchard, 

 assuming at least a moderately strong growth, the tree should be pruned 

 rather severely (beginning with perhaps a 75 per cent pruning) and this 

 should consist in both thinning out and heading back, with the emphasis 

 perhaps on heading back. This heavy pruning is for the purpose of 

 properly developing the framework of the tree. If it has made a weak 

 growth, pruning should be correspondingly lighter. As the tree becomes 

 older, pruning gradually decreases in severity until at 6 or 7 years, when it 

 reaches bearing age and size, very little is done. As pruning slowly 

 lessens in severity it gradually changes in kind, consisting less in heading 

 back and more and more in thinning out. This general procedure devel- 

 ops a fruit-spur system and brings it into bearing. After the tree is once 

 in bearing, pruning slowly increases in amount but continues to be 

 mainly a thinning out; this thinning should comprise the removal of small 

 limbs throughout the top rather than the cutting of a few large limbs. 

 When this plan is followed there is some thinning of fruit spurs and of the 

 fruit crop, overbearing is prevented and the length of life, regularity of 

 bearing and efficiency of individual spurs are promoted. 



Special Suggestions for Unusual Fruiting Habits. — Certain varieties 

 of the apple and the pear have been said to bear many fruit buds termi- 

 nall}' or laterally on long shoots. This is particularly common during 

 the period when they are just coming into bearing. Under these cir- 

 cumstances greater care must be exercised against the unnecessary removal 

 of any new shoots and heading back should be reduced to a minimum 

 until the trees have a better developed fruit spur-system and are bearing 

 a considerable percentage of their crop on it. The production of lateral 

 fruit buds on long shoots, it should be noted, presents a case quite similar 

 to that of the peach and consequently the pruning of such trees should 

 resemble that ordinarily given peach trees as much as it does that of the 

 average apple or pear variety. However, most of these lateral fruit buds 

 in the apple are borne on the terminal half or even third of the shoot, 

 while a considerable percentage of those of the peach are found on the 

 basal half. This necessitates much more care in heading back the fruit 

 bearing shoots in these particular varieties than is requisite in the peach. 

 Pruning the Peach. — The peach is perhaps the best known repre- 

 sentative of that group of fruits which "bear lateral fruit buds on long 

 growths or shoots. These buds contain flowers only and with their 

 falling, or with the maturing of the fruits which develop from them, that 

 portion of the branch to which they were attached becomes barren. 



