64 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



unpruned shoot has multiplied in the one year, giving rise to 

 from three to ten new shoots, and if multiplication continued at 

 the same rate in subsequent years, the tree would become a 

 thicket of growth; but, as a matter of fact, in the absence of 

 pruning, a tree prunes itself, and new shoots arise and develop 

 only where there is space for their development. Hence, by a 

 continued omission of pruning we cannot reproduce the results 

 obtained by the omission of one pruning only; and hence, also, 

 with older trees, the harder pruned individuals may form the 

 greater number of new shoots, though in earlier years the reverse 

 was the case. This answers the fourth question on p. 59. 



Closer examination of the branches cut back to different 

 extents gave evidence on a point more important even than that 

 of wood-formation, namely, that of fruit-production; for it 

 appeared that the reduction in the extent of the pruning had 

 resulted in an increase in the number of blossom buds, quite 

 as great as the increase in the weights of the shoots ; in fact, the 

 two sets of results were almost identical in magnitude 



Cut back, leaving 

 6" 12" 24" 36" 



Weight of shoots and side shoots 100 179 310 562 

 Fruit buds 100 193 400 547 



This result held good in individual cases as much as in the 

 averages ; for, when the values for each of the 32 cases available 

 were examined separately, there were only four instances where 

 reduced pruning was not accompanied by an increased formation 

 of blossom buds (VII, 25). It was found, too, that a similar 

 favourable effect, but much smaller in extent (about 20 per cent.), 

 was produced on the older wood of three years' standing, though 

 as regards wood-formation the effect, as has been seen, was 

 the opposite (p. 63). 



The unfavourable influence of pruning on fruit-production 

 foreshadowed by these results was fully established by an 

 analysis of the fruiting records of the plots pruned to different 

 extents. These records are depicted in Fig. 12, being divided 

 into two five-year periods and one ten-year period, the latter, 

 however, depending mainly on the records from Bramley's 

 Seedling. Comparing the moderately pruned trees with the 

 others, the omission of pruning has doubled the crops, and hard 

 pruning has almost halved them. 



Another series of experiments, wherein a number of dwarf 

 apples of the varieties Cox's Orange Pippin, Mr. Gladstone and 



