434 SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



and persimmon produce strong shoots or canes from branch buds which 

 have wintered over. On these the blossom buds are borne. The loquat 

 bears its blossom buds at the tips of terminal shoots of the same sepson. 



Pruning for Fruit. — In pruning for fruit, it is evident that the plants 

 in these various groups must be pruned differently. Apples, pears and 

 other plants which hold their bloom buds over winter may be encouraged 

 to bear by summer pruning about the time the shoots have ceased to 

 extend. This tends to develop blossom buds. Pruning of these plants 

 dining the dormant season, on the other hand, tends to produce wood at 

 the expense of fruit production. (Consult bulletins of the Tennessee Experi- 

 ment Station on "Summer Pruning.") 



Plants in the second general group are usually pruned in spring, when 

 the number of buds left will indicate approximately how many fruits or 

 clusters of fruits will be produced — one for each quince bud, two or three 

 clusters of grapes for each grape bud, and so on. Pruning of these plants, 

 therefore, is equivalent to thinning, for it limits the number of fruits to be 

 set and helps improve the size and quality of the specimens. 



Pruning Older Trees. — In pruning trees great care should be taken to 

 make the wounds close to the main trunk or limbs. If a limb to be cut off 

 is large, the saw should first be used beneath it a foot or so away from the 

 crotch. When the saw sticks, a second cut should be made above so the 

 limb will drop off easily. Then the stub may be cut off close to the trunk 

 without danger of splitting or tearing the tree and making an ugly, slow- 

 healing wound. Beyond the removal of branches that cross each other 

 young trees properly started and trained should need little or no pruning 

 unless they break down. 



Tillage. — Orchards in sod have in commercial practice practically 

 given place to tilled orchards. Where success attends sod treatment, some 

 other factor is usually evident enough upon study of the situation. The 

 experiment station at Geneva, N. Y., has reported that a sod-mulched 

 orchard under ten-year experiment yielded higher colored, earlier maturing 

 fruit than a tilled orchard of the same variety and otherwise handled the 

 same way, but that the tilled orchard yielded heavily and uniformly, gave 

 fruit of better quality, larger size, longer keeping, less dead wood in the 

 trees and better foliage and growth. Sod lowers the water supply and soil 

 temperature, decreases certain plant-foods, reduces humus and air supply 

 in soil, impairs work of soil bacteria, and forms substances that impair 

 tree health. Sod, however, has special use where tillage is impossible 

 either because of the steep slopes or stony land. 



Tillage should start with the preparation of the land for planting and 

 be done yearly while the plants remain profitable. The advantage of this 

 is that the roots are encouraged to go deeply and thus withstand dry weather 

 as well as escape the plow. Each year operations should be begun as early 

 as the land can be worked and continue until the twigs have reached their 

 full length about midsummer. Between mid and late summer, tillage 



