Pruning Mature Trees 137 



shedding and insure a good crop of fruit. The practice of 

 the most successful growers is to cut the tree back each 

 year and cut out some of the new wood that may have been 

 forced by the last pruning. When once the tree begins 

 to bear good crops, there is less trouble about its shed- 

 ding. 



Some other varieties are more tardy about blooming, 

 and heavy pruning in the dormant season would only 

 augment this objectionable character. Such varieties 

 often respond to June pruning ; and, if they do not, 

 girdling in June will often prove beneficial. In girdling, 

 a strip of bark one quarter of an inch in width and ex- 

 tending entirely around the trunk may be removed ; but 

 perhaps a safer plan is to remove vertical strips of bark 

 one and one-half inches in width, leaving other strips of 

 about the same width intact. If the wood is uninjured, 

 these wounds soon heal and do not permanently injure 

 the tree. 



It is difficult to say just how much the pear should be 

 pruned. The grower must decide for himself. The main 

 object of pruning the mature tree should be to thin the 

 fruit and thus improve the quality as well as to encour- 

 age more regular bearing. However, the grower must not 

 feel that pruning will take the place of thinning entirely; 

 to secure best results the two must go together. 



The subject of pruning the pear could hardly be complete 

 without some reference to the control of pear-blight. While 

 it is true that when once the pear tree is inoculated with 

 blight we must lay aside many of our ideas about pruning 

 and cut to remove the affected parts, it is also true that, 

 in a way, the tree may be trained to reduce to a mini- 



