PRUNING YOUNG TREES 



197 



the extra increase in height of 

 head be made of any material 

 advantage. 



162. Keep main branches 

 properly dominant. When one 

 branch tends to grow at the 

 expense of the rest of the tree 

 the weaker branches gradually 

 become side branches to the 

 two or three remaining stronger 

 ones. Proper pruning will 

 obviate this. The average 

 primer does one of two things : 

 cuts the tree level across the 

 top, or cuts the weakest wood 

 most and the strongest wood 

 least. The former will never 

 build a strong, well-balanced 

 tree, because in doing this no 

 attention is paid to the relation 

 of one branch to another. [The 

 other practice is erroneously 

 based on the principle] that the 

 more wood is cut, the more it 

 grows (83). In other words, it 

 is concluded that if wood is 

 weak and is cut back it will 

 grow stronger! 



It is true that the more a tree 

 is pruned back as a whole while 

 dormant the more will be the 

 resulting growth; that heavy 

 heading-in of a tree during 

 winter means a heavy after- 

 growth. This, however, has to 

 do with the tree as a whole and has little to do with the re- 

 lation of one branch to another. If a strong branch is 



FIG. 161 HEADING BACK 

 MAKES GROWTHS 



The lower left fork of this Yel- 

 low Newtown apple tree was 

 headed back rather severely, the 

 upper right-hand one only mod- 

 erately. From the former four 

 shoots and three fruit spurs have 

 developed; from the latter three 

 shoots and nine spurs. This photo 

 shows that heading back, whether 

 heavy or light, tends to increase 

 the amount of shoot growth in the 

 tree. However, heavy heading 

 back affords a greater stimulus to 

 shoot formation and less to spur 

 making than does moderate head- 

 ing back. 



