PRUNING 67 



But, even if the differences were always in this direction, and 

 were always of this magnitude, they would by no means com- 

 pensate for the much greater differences in the weight of the 

 crops, for the values of the crops as given by the weight of 

 fruit multiplied by the size of the fruits (p. 19) still show a 

 large balance in favour of reduced pruning (V, 117). 



Value of crops 

 during 10 years. 



No pruning .... 158 

 Moderate pruning . . . 100 

 Hard pruning .... 49 



Other data may be adduced, all showing the benefit on fruit- 

 production by a reduction in the extent of the pruning. Thus, 

 a mixed plantation of one-quarter of an acre was divided into 

 three similar sections, each of which was pruned to a different 

 extent, and the relative values of the crops from these during 

 the nine years that the experiment lasted were 



Light pruning .... 100 

 Moderate pruning ... 67 

 Hard pruning .... 64 



A very striking illustration of a similar effect is afforded by the 

 fruit trees constituting the shelter hedges at the farm : these 

 are pruned very hard, and consequently bear little or no fruit ; 

 but here and there branches have been left unpruned, so as to 

 extend and form arches, and such branches, in contrast with 

 the rest of the hedges, are usually loaded with -fruit. 



From every point of view, therefore, it would appear that 

 pruning is disadvantageous to a fruit tree, and that the more it 

 can be reduced, the better. 1 But this does not by any means 

 imply that it ought to be dispensed with. A fruit tree is an 

 instance of a plant which has been developed by selection and 

 cultivation till it has become abnormal in certain respects, and 

 consequently requires abnormal or unnatural treatment. It 

 has been developed so as to bear a much heavier crop than it 

 would naturally do, and to bear it at an earlier age ; such crops 

 are in many cases greater than the branches can carry without 

 distortion or injury, and hence, if pruning is dispensed with, the 

 tree may be ruined, as is seen in the illustration in Fig. 9, p. 58, 

 which represents a tree of a very precocious variety and some- 

 what weak growth Stirling Castle. Where a stronger and less 



1 Similar results- were obtained by K. Koopman, Elementalehren aus 

 dem Gebiete des Baumschnitts, Landw. Jahrbuch., xv. 1896, pp. 97-618. 



