80 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



implies that the treatment to which the tree has been subjected 

 must have been very improper in some other way : excessive 

 branch-pruning is, obviously, where the error lies. Such excessive 

 branch-pruning upsets the balance between branches and roots, 

 the tree no longer functions as a healthy fruit-producing plant, 

 and the balance can only be restored by inflicting a corresponding 

 injury on the roots, or otherwise injuring the vitality of the tree 

 by ringing its bark, etc., as is sometimes practised. But to injure 

 a tree in one respect, and then to correct that injury by injuring 

 it in another, is not a rational method of procedure : if there was 

 less branch-pruning, and, perhaps, less over feeding, of fruit trees, 

 we should hear very little of root-pruning. 



Just as injury to the roots affects branch-growth, so injury 

 to the branches affects root-growth : the hard-pruned trees, as 

 the values quoted on p. 59 showed, were only two-thirds as 

 heavy as the unpruned ones, but it was found that, on the 

 aver-age, the proportion between the weights of the roots and 

 branches was almost independent of the extent of the pruning, 

 the values being 



Percentage of Roots to the Whole Tree 



No pruning. Light pruning. Hard pruning. 

 19 21 23 



so that pruning the branches must have affected the root-develop- 

 ment nearly as much as it affected the branch-development 

 itself (XVI, 56). 



Of course, in the case of trees trained against a wall, excessive 

 branch pruning is necessary, or the trees would not long remain 

 as wall trees, and then root-pruning may be inevitable ; but 

 that is only an instance of a special case calling for special 

 treatment. 1 



1 References to the results obtained in America on root-pruning most 

 of which were unfavourable will be found on p. 34, footnote. 



