PRUNING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR FRUITS 465 



hand measures should be taken to promote a greater vegetative growth, 

 particularly in those varieties or under those conditions that tend toward 

 the development of new shoots from terminal buds only. Otherwise 

 long pole-like fruiting branches, subject to much injury from the wind 

 when heavily loaded with fruit, will develop. Heading back to promote 

 branching, however, must be done with considerable care. If the 

 heading is into 2-year, 3-year, or older wood new side branches are not 

 likely to form and the limbs in question are subordinated to an unim- 

 portant position in the tree. Heading back to near the base of the one- 

 3^ear old shoots is much more likely to induce the branching desired, 

 though this alone is often rather ineffective in large trees somewhat 

 lacking in vigor. A certain amount of pruning back to 2-year, 3-year 

 or older laterals is often effective in keeping the tree within bounds. 

 There is little occasion to do much thinning out in the sweet cherry tree 

 that is well in bearing and the heading back is mainly for the purpose of 

 lowering the top and correcting form. Dehorning is seldom resorted to 

 because of the poor response in new shoot growth that often follows this 

 operation and because of the time required for the formation of a good 

 supply of new spurs before the tree can again come into heavy bearing. 



Generally speaking, then, the pruning of the bearing sweet cherry 

 should be light in amount and for correcting and improving shape. On 

 account of the growing habit this means that it will consist largely in 

 heading back. Other orchard practices, such as cultivation, irrigation 

 and fertilization, should be counted on to encourage a strong new shoot 

 growth which can be headed back to promote branching and compactness 

 of tree. 



Pruning the Almond, Apricot, Plum, and Sour Cherry. — As has been 

 stated in the classification of fruiting habits, the almond, apricot, plum 

 and sour cherry form a series intermediate in their habits of bearing 

 between the peach on the one hand and the sweet cherry on the other. 

 That is, all of these fruits bear fruit-buds laterallj^ on both long and short 

 growths. Some of them, as certain of the almonds and Japanese plums, 

 approach the peach more closely; others, as the Insititia plums, approach 

 the sweet cherry more closely. The age and vigor of the trees and the 

 cultural conditions under which they are grown influence the relative 

 distribution of fruit buds on spurs and on shoots. Roberts*^ states that 

 weak or moderately vigorous sour cherry trees bear a much larger per- 

 centage of their fruit buds on medium to short shoots than do the vigorous 

 trees of the same varieties. The reverse is likely to hold in certain varie- 

 ties of the Japanese plum. 



Since the bearing habits of these fruits are intermediate between 

 those of the peach and of the sweet cherry, it follows that their pruning 

 treatments should likewise be intermediate between those given typical 

 bearing trees of those species. If the bearing habit is more like that 



