CHAPTER VII 

 PRUNING (continued) 



9 



THE PRUNING OF OLDER OR AILING TREES 



IT is, thus, during early years, when the foundations of its 

 future life are being laid, that pruning is of most importance, 

 and no objection, therefore, can be raised to the above conclu- 

 sions on the ground that they are based on experiments with 

 comparatively young trees, mostly under fifteen years o,f age. 

 Pruning in the strict sense of the word the cutting back of some 

 of the new wood formed in the season is but little required with 

 trees in full bearing, because little new wood is made by them, 

 and, owing to their size, much pruning of that sort is often 

 impracticable. 



That the effect of pruning on a young tree, where growth is 

 active, must differ from that on an older tree, where growth 

 is feeble and its energies are directed mainly to fruit-bearing, is 

 fairly evident ; accordingly, it is found that the effect of heavy 

 pruning in such a case tends in the opposite direction to what 

 it does in the case of younger trees ; it checks fruiting and increases 

 growth. That w^s shown by measuring the length of new wood 

 formed during the season by trees of fifteen years of age when 

 under different treatment, the results proving that the unpruned 

 trees were then forming comparatively little wood being chiefly 

 occupied in bearing whereas the hard-pruned trees were forming 

 as much as those which were pruned moderately, just the reverse 

 of their behaviour in earlier years (VII, 42). 



New wood. 



Not pruned . . . . -54 

 Moderately pruned . . . 100 



Hard pruned ..... 104 



Such a reversal will tend to the eventual equalisation of the 

 results of different degrees of pruning, the trees which have been 

 retarded in their growth by this pruning eventually catching 

 up their less pruned fellows, who have come to maturity earlier. 



69 



