APPLE BRANCH 97 



short, rough twigs. These are stunted branches that grow 

 hardly the width of a joint in a year. 



If the whole top of an apple tree is cut off, new shoots will 

 spring from the trunk even where there are no buds, and the 

 bark is thick and dry. Along the upper side of large branches 

 whiplike shoots often spring up. These shoots take food that 

 should go to the fruit, and so the farmer keeps them cut off. 



Why an Apple Tree grows crooked. A year-old apple seed- 

 ling is a single straight stem with a bud on its tip. For three 

 or four years it usually grows with a central straight stem 

 like a pine. It would keep on growing so, if the bud on the 

 tip of the stem always grew to be a strong shoot. But some- 

 times the bud becomes an apple instead of a shoot. Sometimes 

 the bud is broken off, and sometimes it is injured by insects. 

 Then the tree has to grow by means of its side branches, and 

 so grows crooked. 



How is a pine bud protected so that it seldom fails to grow ? 



Leaf Marks. On many trees the scars left by the fallen 

 leaves show much more plainly than on an apple tree. Look 

 at the scars on a horse chestnut, hickory, or ailantus tree. 

 How are they different from the scars on an apple branch ? 

 The scars are shaped like the base of a leaf stem, and in no 

 t\vo kinds of trees are they quite alike. 



OVER. NAT. STUD. 7 



