PRUNING MATURE TREES 



265 



12. The principal growth took place near the extremities of the 

 parts left after pruning. Trees cut back into more than four-year- 

 old wood failed to grow at all in some cases, showing that in very 

 old wood the buds are too dormant to be easily started into growth. 

 The amount to cut away in renewing winter-injured trees requires 

 good judgment in choosing between leaving too much wood (which 

 results in weak growth and too high heads) and cutting back too 

 far into old, dormant wood that will not start new limbs. 



13. Experiments to determine the best time to prune showed that 

 trees pruned any time after the severe cold spell up to the time the 

 buds began to start in spring grew equally well. 



14. Good cultivation is of more than usual benefit to peach trees 

 during the spring and summer following severe winter injury. 



FIG. 227 GREENSBORO PEACH. FIVE YEARS OLD, PRUNED IMMEDIATELY 

 AFTER HARVESTING FRUIT IN EARLY JUNE 



20-1. Summer pruning the peach.* It is the usual custom to prune 

 peach trees while dormant, in late winter or early spring. When 

 pruning is done before growth begins in the spring, the new growth 

 has the entire season for its development. When summer pruning 

 is not practiced, the more rapidly growing upper shoots shade the 

 lower, slower growing ones, which in most cases die. The result 

 is that year by year the fruiting wood gets farther and farther from 



* Paragraph 204 has been condensed from C. A. Keffer's Bulletin (108) of the 

 Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station 



