Feb., 1925] PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS 



25 



failure of the tree to make much growth, together with the removal by pruning 

 of some of the spurs present in 1923. The average increase in number of spurs 

 in the non-disbudded orchard is found to be 23.3 per cent. The data on the 

 disbudded trees are given in Table XII. 



Table XII. — Increase in spurs on disbudded trees. 



Relatively speaking, the trees in the disbudded orchard gained a larger 

 number of .spurs. In this case gain in spurs inchides not only new fruit spurs 

 formed on the tree but any of the disbudded spurs which have commenced new 

 growth from side shoots. If the estimate is made on the gain in number of 

 spurs as compared to the number which .should have been present in the spring 

 of 1923, it is found that only five trees show a gain. Six of the trees had not yet 

 regained the number of spurs which they had before the partridges attacked 

 them, and there is still on an average a loss of about 2 per cent. The total 

 number of spurs present in this orchard is approximately that which would 

 have been present in the spring of 1923 if the birds had not attacked the trees. 



The total gain on these trees, using the reduced number of spurs as a basis, is 

 greater than the total gain on the non-di,sbudded trees, being on the average 

 47.5 per cent. 



(3) Effect Upon Fruit Bud Formation. 



The proportion of fruit buds on the trees in the spring of 1923 could not have 

 been affected by the budding done during the winter of 1922-23, because it was 

 determined during the previous growing season (1922) or, in other words, pre- 

 vious to the inroads by the buds. The disbudded trees in 1923 had 64.7 per 

 cent of fruit buds, and the non-di.sbudded trees 57.7 per cent. It may be ex- 

 pected that the fruit bud formation during the season of 1923 might be affected 

 by the budding which occurred during the previous winter. It is unsafe, how- 

 ever, to use the fruit bud formation of a single season because of the tendency 

 to bear in alternate years which has already been mentioned. The tree which 



