PRUNING MATURE TREES 251 



years. The aim should be to keep it low-headed. There 

 is no difficulty in doing this with the sour varieties and 

 even the tall-growing sweet varieties may be made to 

 form spreading heads like apple trees by judicious heading 

 back. Unless so pruned sweet varieties will often reach 

 heights of 35 or 40 feet when 25 years old. Since the 

 bearing wood is always near the ends of the branches too 

 much time will be required to harvest the crop. Then, 

 too, spraying is more difficult and costly on such tall 

 trees. 



The aims with both sweet and sour varieties should 

 be to keep the fruiting parts of the trees as near the 

 ground as possible, to develop fruiting wood throughout 

 the whole top and to keep the trunks and frame limbs 

 well shaded so danger of sun scald will be reduced to a 

 minimum. In all pruning to develop fruiting wood, the 

 fruiting habit of the cherry (56, 64) must be borne in 

 mind, because trees with this habit will not submit to ex- 

 cessive cutting. Over-pruning will force excessive growths 

 of strong wood which bears fruit buds sparsely. On 

 the other hand the fruit spurs on trees neglected from the 

 pruning standpoint, become puny and spindling after 

 bearing constantly for several years, and what fruit is 

 borne appears singly instead of in clusters of two or more. 

 Also the fruits so produced are usually of inferior size. 



Varieties which produce abundance of bloom, but 

 which set fruit sparsely, thus indicate that they are either 

 not being pruned correctly or severely enough, or that 

 they are self-sterile. In the former case it is recommended 

 that they be severely pruned while dormant ; in the latter, 

 that fertilizing varieties be either grafted or budded in 

 or planted near by. In cases where few or no blossoms 

 are produced the trouble may be that the trees have been 

 pruned too severely or fed too liberally, or, in irrigated 

 orchards, that too much water has been applied during 1 



