CA iVA DIA N II OR TIC VL TIJRIS T. 



67 



But with rei,'ar(l to t\w coiuinon 

 iiirthod of i)iuniii<,', we have some criti- 

 cisms to orter. The annual butchering 

 to which many orchards are subjected 

 cannot be too severely condemned. On 

 Maplehurst Fruit Farm, our oldest 

 orchard, thoujjfh over seventy-five years 

 of age, would be in prime condition for 

 another twenty live years only for this 

 practice. 



Indeed those ti-ees wliich, on iiccount 

 of inferiority of kind, were most neg 

 lected by the pruner, are now the 

 heilthiest and finest in the orchard: 

 while the otiiers are rotten at heart, or 

 hollow, from the <freat wounds made in 

 pruning. Prof. S. T. Maynard, of 

 Mas.sachusetts, gives an illustration of 

 the right and wrong-method of pruning 

 in the Farm and llomt\ which we here 

 reproduce. 



Fig. 27 shows the wrong method of 

 pruning on a tree from whicli .several 

 large limbs have just been removed. 

 Many people always insist on removing 

 the leading centre Ijranch, to let in the 



sun as they say. We wholly object to this 

 sy.stem, and would refer to Fig. 2S, 

 as showing the ideal turn) which should 

 be the aim of the pruner. In this case 

 the pyramidal form is produced by 

 encouraging the growth of a strong, 

 leading shoot, about which all others 

 areallow(!d to grow as symmetrically as 

 possible. TIk! annual j>ruiiing will 

 then consist simply in thinning out all 

 superfluous small branches wiiich tend 

 to cross efvch othei-, and if growing too 

 low, the side brandies may be shor- 

 tened back just beyond some upright 

 ones, as shown Ijy the dotted lines at 

 rt, a. 



Pkunini; TiiK GiiAPE. — The cold, 

 chilling winds of this month do not 

 favor this work, and yet this is the 

 time when very many vineyardists 

 engage in it. Many systems are 

 advocated, and yet the majority of 

 growers in Canada prune without 

 much regard to any of them. The 

 Fuller system, has l)een already well 

 described and illustrated in these 



pages, and is one of the tidiest methods, 

 with its main laterals trained along the 

 bottom wire, from which upiights are 

 trained to the upper wires and removed 

 alternately. Many growers about 

 Grimsby practise a variation of this 

 system, which may be termed Fan 

 Pruning^ in which instead of two main 

 laterals, .several canes are allowed to 

 form, and spread out upon the wires 

 like a fan. 



This mode does not give a vineyard 

 nearly such a regular and tidy appear- 

 ance as the former one. 



