THE BEAR-QUICK APPLE 309 



it to consist of a long stem, tapering from half an inch 

 to two inches thick, with stumps at intervals from the 

 ground mark upwards. These stumps are all that the 

 nurseryman has left of the side branches. At the base 

 of the stumps are buds of varying degrees of plumpness : 

 some quite fat and round, others thin and pointed, others 

 again at a half-way stage between the two. The first kind 

 are fruit buds, the second wood buds, the third miniature 

 buds. So much for the winter condition. 



With the spring there comes a strong flow of sap, and 

 the buds swell. The plump buds burst into bloom and 

 leaf, for each of these fat buds has incipient foliage as 

 well as fruit wrapped up in it. The thin buds merely 

 make growth. The half-way buds may have plumped 

 up during the winter and become fruit buds. 



A few weeks after the spring start, the tree is on the 

 way to bear, not only a crop of fruit, but a number of 

 side branches. These extend more or less rapidly ac- 

 cording to the soil and the weather. By the end of June 

 they may be a foot long, by the end of July two feet, by 

 the end of August three feet. Somewhere about the latter 

 time each shoot will form a bud at the tip as a sign that 

 it has finished extending for the season. The tree is now 

 no longer a cordon, but if the side branches are pruned 

 back to stumps just as the nurseryman had pruned them 

 the trees revert to the cordon condition. 



The theorist is not satisfied that this winter pruning 

 does the utmost that is possible to help the tree, and he 

 advocates summer pruning because it gives the tree 

 more assistance in forming its fruit buds. It saves the 

 tree unnecessary expenditure on leaf and stem and stores 

 the sap thus saved in the buds at the base of the side 

 shoots, helping them to perform the wonderful process 

 by which potential leaf is developed into bloom and fruit. 



