78 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



moderate and hard pruning practised on August 15 were found 

 to result in blossom production in the ratio of 100 : 52 (XV, 68). 

 Actual pruning in summer is, however, not a very practical 

 operation, and even summer treatment of a less drastic character 

 can only be attempted in small fruit gardens. The form of 

 pruning then adopted generally consists of such methods as will 

 check the growth of the shoots, without actually removing any 

 part of them : the terminal buds may be pinched off, the shoots 

 may be broken and left hanging, or they may be twisted so as 

 to loosen the bark from the wood. Experiments are in progress 

 on these three methods of treatment, applying them on different 

 dates from July 20 to August 31, but they have not been con- 

 tinued long enough to allow of any definite pronouncement as 

 to the results, beyond that such summer treatment has so far 

 increased the blossoming by about 13 per cent., and has reduced 

 the growth by 16 per cent., and that, in both cases, the effect 

 is greater the earlier the operation is performed between July 20 

 and August 31 (the reverse of what was found in the case of 

 summer pruning in its strict sense) : but the increase in the 

 blossoming has not, so far, been followed by any increase in the 

 fruiting, the results for three years showing, fairly uniformly, 

 a deficiency of twenty per cent, as regards the fruiting of the 

 summer-treated trees. So far, therefore, the results obtained 

 on summer pruning have been very contradictory. 1 



THE MANNER OF PRUNING 



Much store is often set on the nature of the cut which should 

 be made in pruning a shoot, it being held that the cut should 

 slope upwards and outwards, and be made at the level of a bud 

 which points away from the centre of the tree. Much attention 

 cannot be given to such niceties when pruning extensive planta- 

 tions, or in dealing with large trees where long pruners have 

 to be used, and, fortunately, except in one particular, these 

 niceties do not appear to be of much importance. A series of 

 experiments with young apple trees, extending over seven years, 

 gave some information on the subject. No appreciable differ- 

 ence in the vigour of growth of the trees was made, either by 

 using secateurs instead of a knife, or by pruning to an inside 

 instead of an outside bud. In the latter case some effect was 



1 So also do they appear to have been in the United States. Good 

 results were obtained by Drinkard at the West Virginia Agric. Expt. 

 Station, Tech. Bull. 5, 1915, and also by Dickens at the Kansas State 

 Agric. Coll., Bull. 136. Unfavourable results were obtained by Batchelor 

 and Goodspeed at the Utah Agric. Coll. Expt. Station, Bull. 140. 



