464 FUNDAMENTALS OF FRUIT PRODUCTION 



pruning here suggested could easily be overdone. It should not remove 

 so much new growth that the developing fruit is subjected to danger 

 from sunscald or that the formation of secondary shoots is stimulated. 

 It should be well distributed through the top and outer portions of the 

 tree, as its effectiveness depends on making possible a better distribution 

 of sunlight to the leaves on the lower portions of the new shoots. If 

 carefully done it reduces greatly the amount of shoot thinning that will 

 be required the following spring and the yearly pruning treatment really 

 becomes a summer thinning out and a winter heading back. Inci- 

 dentally it is of considerable aid in promoting coloration of the fruit. 



Pruning the Sweet Cherry. — Typical of that group of fruits whose 

 flower buds are borne laterally on short spurs and give rise to an inflores- 

 cence only is the sweet cherry. The terminal of the sweet cherry spur is 

 always a leaf bud by which the growth of the spur is continued each year. 

 New spurs originate from some of the lateral leaf buds on the shoots of the 

 preceding season and new shoot growth proceeds from other lateral buds, 

 from terminal buds on shoots, from latent or adventitious buds on the 

 older wood and occasionally from the terminal buds of spurs. However, 

 comparatively few shoots arise from buds of the last two classes in the 

 sweet cherry. The lateral buds on the year-old shoots of young vigor- 

 ously growing trees are little inclined to produce spurs, but either grow 

 out into new shoots or remain dormant. Consequently the young trees 

 of this species are thick brushy growers, strongly vegetative in character 

 and often slow in coming into bearing. Old trees of the same species 

 present a rather sharp contrast to this condition. Most of the lateral 

 buds on their shoots produce spurs or remain dormant. Often new shoot 

 growth is produced mainly from the terminal buds of the last year's 

 shoots, the result being a tree that is markedly reproductive and often 

 lacking in vigor. 



As the problem in the young tree is first to secure a strong framework 

 and then a good equipment of fruit spurs, much as in the apple and 

 pear and as its shoots and spurs originate from buds in the same locations, 

 its pruning treatment the first few years should correspond closely to 

 that of those fruits. In other words pruning should be fairly heavy at 

 first, gradually decreasing in amount till at 6 or 7 years little is 

 done. At the same time it should change gradually from a treatment 

 which consists largely in heading back to one which consists almost 

 entirely in thinning out. 



As the tree becomes older, however, its pruning treatment should div- 

 erge gradually from that customarily given the apple or pear. Its natural 

 tendency to produce large numbers of fruit spurs obviates the necessity 

 of employing any treatment to encourage greater spur and fruit bud 

 production. At the same time this growing habit results in a fairly 

 open top in which the foliage is well exposed to light. On the other 



