PRUNING THE CHERRY 



261 



I plant my trees twenty feet apart each way. My method is to plan thus 

 closely and then keep my trees low, by cutting back every year; this facilitates 

 gathering the fruit very much. I prefer this way to setting the trees farther 

 apart and allowing them to attain too great a height. By the former method 

 I secure fully as good, if not better, results per acre, to say nothing of the 

 difference in gathering the fruit. Another advantage in keeping the trees 

 headed low is that the wind does not affect them nearly as much as it does 

 .tail trees. 



The best distances are 24 or 28 feet on such deep soils as have 

 been described as best befitting the tree and though one may 

 fix his distance in planting according to the method of pruning 

 he proposes to follow, he should remember that the cherry is 

 naturally a large tree, and most old orchards are now overcrowded. 



As with other trees, orchard planters prefer trees with one 

 year's growth on the bud in the nursery, because they usually 

 get, then, a straight switch with well-developed buds all the way 

 down, and the head can be formed as desired. For garden plant- 

 ing, older trees, properly pruned in the nursery, can be used to 

 advantage. 



PRUNING THE CHERRY 



All our best growers agree in the advantage of a low head 

 for the cherry, and all aim to have the trunks of young trees from 

 the ground up to the limbs literally covered all around with 

 leaves, which completely shelter the bark from the rays of the sun. 

 In planting, therefore, the side buds are carefully preserved not 

 to be grown into branches, but to be cut or pinched back when 

 they have come out a few inches, leaving just growth enough to 

 clothe the tree with a covering of its own foliage. These spurs 

 not only furnish leaves to shade the trunk, but soon become fruit 

 spurs and bear well. 



Low Heading with a Central Stem. Some of the trees in the 

 older orchards have been shaped by carrying up a leader with a 

 regular system of side branches. Head back at planting to two 

 feet, pinching off the shoots below the head as stated, and allow- 

 ing the shoots which form the head to grow larger, but they too 

 are all to be pinched except the leader, which is allowed to grow 

 as long as it pleases during the summer. During fall or winter 

 pruning cut back the leader to about twelve or sixteen inches 

 from its starting point and cut back the side branches to about 

 six or eight inches. This is done year after year, cutting back 

 and thinning out the side shoots, pinching the laterals, and allow- 

 ing the leader to grow, never interfering with it until the winter 

 pruning, and always letting it predominate over the side shoots. 

 By cutting short, wood is increased, but at the end of six years the 

 tree goes into fruit very rapidly. As the tree increases in fruit it 

 decreases in wood, and by the time it is ten or twelve years old 



