54 FRUIT FARMING 



fruit buds. The ancient practice of bark-ringing is 

 based on the same principle, as is also that of 

 wassailing the apple trees. Readers of Philpotts' 

 " Children of the Mist" will remember the "wassailing" 

 of the Devonshire orchard described therein. The 

 ceremony of discharging guns at the trees had no 

 doubt the practical result of causing many wounds in 

 which canker would establish itself and thus check 

 the downward sap flow, and thus the fruitfulness 

 which was believed to follow this ceremony would be 

 capable of a simple explanation. Another well-known 

 practice, that of bending down a branch to make it 

 more fruitful, also owes its success to the fact that it 

 would be more difficult for the elaborated sap to flow 

 out of the branch into the stem and thence to the 

 roots. 



All fruit-growers will know how freely the middle 

 portion of a fan-trained tree will grow compared with 

 the side branches which are parallel to the ground. 

 This is due to the fact that the straighter the passage 

 the quicker the flow of sap. The centre branches 

 take more than their share of root sap, and the 

 freedom with which the elaborated product flows back 

 to the root prevents those strong branches attaining 

 the fruitfulness of those situated at the sides. 



Other examples might be given, but enough has 

 been said to illustrate the point and to show how a 

 knowledge of physiology may be of value to the 

 pruner. It is manifestly impossible in the short space 

 of a lecture to more than roughly sketch these 

 possibilities. 



In the different conditions in which the pruner finds 

 his subjects, in their varying constitutions and habits, 



