34 FRUIT FARMING 



CHAPTER IV. 



PRUNING IN COMMERCIAL FRUIT CULTURE. 



A Paper read at the Rochester Farmers' Club by 

 Air. George Bunyard, V.M.H. (revised). 



The Object of Pruning. This operation is designed 

 to assist nature in the production of superior fruit ; 

 which, by reducing the quantity of fruiting spurs and 

 excess branches, enables the tree to concentrate its 

 vital energy on a fewer number of buds, to their better 

 individual development. Further than this, a skilful 

 pruner leaves all fruit buds in the best possible position 

 to catch the sun and air, with a view of obtaining not 

 only increased size in the fruit, but to ensure that 

 high colour and perfect ripeness which such exposure 

 alone can produce. All growers know that fruit from 

 the inside of a tree is not so highly developed or 

 coloured as that from the outside. Thus a careful 

 man will operate with a view to create a natural 

 balance between roots and branch, so that each tree may 

 produce a yearly crop, and not, as when left unpruned, 

 a heavy crop in one year and none the next, because 

 the tree requires a year's rest to recover itself. A story 

 is told that the owner of a small garden had two 

 standard apples that produced a heavy crop every 

 other year, and my grandfather advised him to cut 

 oif the blossom from one at flowering time, after which 

 he had a crop every year. The exhaustion of a tree 



