GOOD FORMS OF YOUNG TREES 



131 



season's growth apparently complete. There are no frosts to hasten 

 the fall of the leaf and it remains in place. Does it render any im- 

 portant service? On the conclusion that it does not, many growers 

 begin the winter pruning while the days are longer and ground dry 

 and firm rather than delay pruning until the short, dark days and 

 rain-soaked soil of December and January render pruning expensive 

 and disagreeable. Those trees are first pruned which first assume 

 the appearance described, and the work proceeds with other varie- 

 ties afterwards until the winter pruning is finished by December 1 

 about the time when it commonly began under the old practice. Not 

 only is more thus accomplished in the same number of days' work, 



Young peach and apple trees, showing branches well spaced on the stems. 



but the orchard is earlier in shape for the winter spraying and culti- 

 vation and the grower is ahead of his work and not behind it all the 

 season if the season is unusually rainy. Several years' practice of 

 this method discloses no bad results except in the one item of 

 increasing danger from frost. Vines and trees pruned early in the 

 dormant period have a tendency to start growth earlier than those 

 pruned late in the dormant period. In places, then, where early 

 bloom and fruit-setting are particularly threatened by frost, this 

 practice may be undesirable. 



Spring Pruning. Resting largely upon this matter of retarding 

 growth, the practice of pruning very late in the dormant period, or, 

 in fact, at the beginning of the growing season, is also gaining wider 

 adoption where frost injury is especially feared. It is not actual 



