170 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING 



FIG. 121 



YEARLING PEACH WITH 

 CENTRAL LEADER 



spreading all kinds of fungous dis- 

 eases and insects; 6, enabling two 

 and even three-year-old trees to be 

 used for planting as advanta- 

 geously as one-year-old trees, thus 

 saving losses to nurserymen, who 

 ordinarily burn such trees. 



Stringfellow* holds that the usual ill 

 success in transplanting the pecan is due 

 entirely to leaving too long a top root. 

 He advises cutting this root to 4 or 5 

 inches and setting the tree at least 6 inches 

 deeper than hefore it was taken up. 



The main peach plat used in the ex- 

 periments conducted by H. N. Starnsf to 

 test the Stringfellow plan presented on 

 the whole as fine an appearance as any 

 two-year-old peach orchard the writer 



[Mr. Starns] has ever seen. The trees at the time averaged 1:.' to 



15 feet in height and bore considerably over 300 crates upon one acre. 

 It may be stated that the writer [Mr. 



Starns] is fairly satisfied that peach trees, 



pruned by the Stringfellow method, will 



live and flourish in Georgia, even in stiff 



clay soil and under adverse meteorological 



conditions. This statement may also be 



extended to cover apples and cherries. 



Dr. J. C. \yhitten concludes from ex- 

 periments and from reports of growers 



that the method of stub-root pruning and 



cutting back to 12 to 18 inches, according 



to the Stringfellow plan, has been of 



great service in showing that it is not 



necessary to retain anything like the large 



quantity of fibrous roots formerly sup- 

 posed to be necessary. 



In the year book of the Netnerland 



Pomological Society for 1902, A. C. Ide 



reports experiments on severe pruning 9f 



young apple and pear trees at time of FIG. 122 AFTER PRUN- 



transplanting. He used one, two and ING TREE IN FIG. 121. 



* Texas Farm and Ranch, 24, Page 10. 



t Georgia Experiment Station, Bulletin 40. The reader will here find a series 

 of half-tones illustrating the discussion on the experiments and also numerous 

 articles quoted from the agricultural press, giving both favorable and unfavorable 

 comment on the theory. 



i Cultura, 14, Page 424. 



