CHAPTER VI 

 PRUNING (Reports, I, 101; 11,137; V, 21; VII, 5 ; XV, 48) 



PRUNING has, perhaps, given rise to as much literature, mostly 

 of the didactic kind, as any branch of the horticultural art. As 

 an art, it does not lend itself very freely to scientific investigation, 

 and where scientific investigation can be brought to bear on it, 

 the teachings of the artist have not always been confirmed. 

 Amongst the many .dreadful accusations brought against the 

 Wo burn farm, one is that the work there has led to the recom- 

 mendation that pruning should be abandoned. The upper figure 

 in the accompanying plate (Fig. 9) shows one of the trees in a plot 

 at the farm where pruning was purposely omitted, and no one 

 with such an example before him would be likely to recommend 

 the omission of it, at any rate, in all. cases. This tree, if it were 

 a standard, would be a not unfair specimen of those which may 

 be found in farm orchards all over the country. That shown 

 below it illustrates a hardly less familiar type, prevalent in private 

 gardens, where the gardener holds the view that the more a tree 

 is pruned the more it will flourish, with the result that all the 

 growth made by it in its endeavour to extend its branches 

 consists of a number of small shoots, which are cut off regularly 

 every year to feed the bonfire. 



That pruning encourages growth, is, except under certain 

 special conditions, one of the fallacies prevalent in horticulture, 

 a fallacy which can be readily exposed by considering the case 

 where the pruning is so excessive and oft repeated, that no growth 

 is allowed to occur at all; and investigation shows that it is 

 fallacious, even when not pressed to such extremes. 



The general questions raised as regards the effect of ordinary 

 pruning on a healthy tree may be stated as follows 



(1) Does pruning favour growth to such an extent that a 

 pruned tree becomes actually larger than an unpruned one ? 



(2) If not, does it yet favour growth so far that the pruned 

 tree forms more new wood than the unpruned one, due allowance 

 being made for the wood removed in the pruning ? 



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