CULTIVATION OF FRUIT 



435 



i.e. in summer five or six leaves, and pruned in winter to three buds. 

 When this practice is followed and care is taken that the spurs do not 

 crowd each other so as to exclude the sun and air, a fruitful tree will 

 invariably result. 



Pruning the Spurs. It is sometimes necessary to prune the spurs, 

 so as to keep them near the wall. In time they get so far away as 

 to derive no benefit from its warmth and shelter, and must therefore 

 be shortened. Upon fruit spurs there are two kinds of buds plump, 

 oval-shaped ones, the blossom-buds ; and thin, elongated ones known as 



FIG. 30. Pear. Fan-shaped, second year. 



" spur-buds." These produce leaves only, and if, as sometimes happens, 

 the spurs of a Pear tree have numerous spur-buds and comparatively few 

 flower-buds, the best practice is to thin out at the winter pruning or 

 severely shorten back those spurs on the upper part of the tree, and to 

 treat those in the middle and lower branches more leniently. The 

 object of so doing is to equalise the distribution of the sap for the 

 lower portion of the tree is invariably the weaker a condition that 

 tends to decrease the number of barren and useless spurs by promoting 

 the formation of flower-buds. 



Root-pruning. This sometimes necessary and beneficial operation 

 is fully explained in the chapter on the Apple (p. 425); it is usually upon 

 trees worked on the Pear stock that root-pruning is required. Instead 

 of simply making a trench around the Pear tree to arrive at the offend- 

 ing roots, if the former be not very large it may be lifted altogether ; 

 and its roots, that will probably have found their way into the subsoil, 

 cut back and placed in a proper position nearer to the surface of the 

 ground. 



