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UNIV. OF N. H. AGR. EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 216 



The non-disbudded trees which were one year older than the disbudded trees 

 and possibly slightly more favored by soil and moisture conditions averaged 4.5 

 inches in diameter in the spring of 1923 and 4.9 inches in the spring of 1924, a 

 gain of 0.40 inch of 8.8 per cent. At least so far as one season's gain in growth 

 is concerned, the disbudding has not seriously affected the increase in diameter 

 of the trunks of the trees. However, the non-disbudded orchard bore a some- 

 what larger crop in 1923 than did the disbudded orchard which, other things 

 being equal, would tend to reduce its growth. Since with the Wealthy apple 

 there is a decided tendency for those trees which bear heavily one season to have 

 a light crop the succeeding year, the average increase in diameter for two years 

 following the disbudding will eliminate the error due to inequalities in the crop 

 and should provide a more reliable figure as to the effect of disbudding on 

 increase in size than the one recorded here. 



(2) Effect of Total Number of Spurs. 



Eleven trees were selected at random in each orchard, and in the spring of 

 1923 counts were made of the total number of spurs on each. The counts were 

 made using automatic hand tallies, and progress was made from branch to 

 branch of the tree in a systematic manner so that it is thought that there was 

 very little or no repetition in counting of the spurs. These counts indicated 

 that the trees in the disbudded orchard had on the average lost 50 per cent of 

 their fruit spurs at the beginning of the season of 1923. Similar counts were 

 made on both orchards in the spring of 1924, and the data are given in Tables 

 XI and XII. 



Table XI. — Increase in spurs on non-disbudded trees. 



It will be noted that, although most of the non-disbudded trees under observa- 

 tion were bearing a considerable crop of fruit, nearly all of them made a material 

 gain in the number of spurs. In one case, that of tree No. 229, a loss of 478 

 spurs is recorded. This may be due either to inaccuracy in the counts or to 



