CHAPTER XII 

 PRUNING TREES AND THINNING FRUIT 



It is not intended to enter into a discussion of the general theo- 

 ries of pruning. The reader desiring to pursue them is referred to 

 the abundant literature on the subject in Eastern and European 

 treatises. The effort to approve or condemn these theories by con- 

 sidering them in the light of California experience and observation 

 might lead to interesting conclusions, but it has no place in a work 

 aiming merely at an exposition of what appears to be the most satis- 

 factory practice in California fruit growing. It will be found that 

 this practice varies somewhat in the different regions of California, 

 sometimes in degree, sometimes in kind, because of different local 

 conditions, and it might be found that nearly all reasonable theories 

 of pruning could be verified in California experience. 



Pruning in California is at present almost exclusively a shaping 

 process. Our fruit trees are naturally so prone to bear fruit that 

 pruning to produce fruitfulness is seldom thought of, and still more 

 rarely practiced, while pruning to reduce bearing wood, and thus 

 decrease the burden of the tree, is quite widely done, to take the 

 place, in part, of thinning out the fruit. Pruning to restore vigor to 

 the tree, as in cutting it back to induce a new wood growth, is also 

 rather a rare proceeding, but probably could be much more widely 

 employed to advantage. We prune, then, for shape and for the 

 many practical advantages which adhere in the form now prevailing 

 in California orchards. Some of these advantages are peculiar to our 

 climate ; others we share with those who advocate a similar form 

 elsewhere. 



Our best orchards of the same fruits in adjacent localities are 

 almost identical in form and general appearance of the trees, and 

 those more distant differ chiefly in the extent to which the same 

 principles are applied. And this is not because the trees are allowed 

 to follow their natural inclination, which should secure resemblance, 

 but because their natural bent is resolutely conquered by agreement 

 of growers that they know what is good for the tree ; and this sub- 

 stantial unanimity is the result of the experience of the last fifty-five 

 years. People possessed of the art temperament sometimes com- 

 plain of the depressing uniformity and artificiality of orchard-tree 

 shapes in California. They are apt to lament the fact that system- 

 atic orcharding destroys the picturesqueness of tree-growth. They 

 should understand that such conception of a fruit tree has no place 

 in commercial fruit growing. The producing tree is the result of the 



117 



