No. 4.] PRUNING THE APPLE TREE. 167 



PRUNING THE APPLE TREE.' 



C. D. JARVIS, PH.D., CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The Ideal in Pruning. 



The architect or builder, before building a house, selects a certain 

 style of structure and this style is followed to the end. The man who 

 would be successful in building up a fruit-bearing structure must 

 also select a style or ideal, and this ideal should be kept constantly 

 in mind throughout the various stages of development. The apple 

 tree is a wonderfully tractable object and may be made to assume 

 almost any shape. Any one who has tried to develop a spreading 

 habit in a Sutton apple tree may disagi'ee with me on this point, 

 for this and some other varieties are sometimes difficult to train, 

 but even the most obstinate eases may be brought under control if 

 proper methods are followed. The methods that have proven suc- 

 cessful with some sorts, however, may not be suited to others. For 

 example, a young Greening tree will assume a spreading habit with- 

 out any special effort on the part of the grower, while a young 

 Sutton will require a severe check in its growth to encourage the 

 production of fruit, the weight of which tends to bring the branches 

 down to a horizontal position. 



In the pruning of apple trees there are two distinct styles or 

 ideals, the central-leader type and the open-center type, each with 

 its corps of adherents. Figs. 1 and 2 illustrate these two types of 

 structures. The supporters of the central-leader type claim that it 

 is a stronger structure and not so likely to be broken down by wind 

 and heavy crops of fniit. This is a strong argument, but it is offset 

 by many disadvantages. With certain naturally spreading varieties, 

 like Greening, Tolman Sweet, or Fall Pippin, it works very well, 

 but with the upright growers there is a tendency to grow too tall 

 and to get out of reach of the spraying apparatus. In the west it 

 is a common practice to grow trees with central leaders, and the 

 result is very satisfactory. In the east, however, the climatic con- 

 ditions are much different, and we require all the sunlight available 

 to give the necessary color to the fruit. The open-center tree admits 

 the maximum amount of sunlight, and with such a tree the work of 

 spraying and harvesting is minimized. 



To develop the ideal fruit-bearing structure we must commence 



• Crop Report for September, 1912. 



