THE CUBA REVIEW 



•25 



PRUNING AND THINNING ESSENTIAL 



[By W. T. Clarke, professor of horticulture iu the L'niversity of Califormai 



A thoughtful article contributed recently 

 to the Calif oniia Fruit Grozver, on the ne- 

 cessity for pruning to a low headed tree 

 and for thinning of the fruit, is worth 

 while reading by every citrus fruit grower 

 who wants to raise the highest priced fruit 

 at the least cost. The professor says in 

 part : 



"The careful horticulturist will soon learii that 

 one of the essential operations in the orchard is 

 the thinning of the fruit and the low-headed tree 

 carefully kept down by systematic pruning makes 

 this operation of thinning much easier and cheaper 

 to perform than would be the case were the tree 

 allowed to grow long branches well in the air. 

 Again, when the harvest time is reached and the 

 fruit picking begins the closer the fruit is to the 

 ground the more economically can it be picked 

 and the less the danger of injury to the fruit 

 through carelessness or through possible dropping 

 from great heights." 



It is true he says further, that the low- 

 headed tree means a lot of hand work in 

 cultivation, but it can be done at a time 

 before thinning and picking begins, when 

 labor is more easily obtained. 



"The advantages possessed by the tree that has 

 been well started with the low head and held back 

 by careful pruning cannot be too strongly empha- 

 sized and far overbalance any possible dis- 

 advantages." 



He also reminds the grower that the aim 



of the pruner should be to open up the 

 tree by cutting out all central leaders. 



"There has been a tendency upon the part of 

 certain of our horticulturists," he says, "to prune 

 so as to produce trees high in the center and 

 sloping off from this center toward the sides. 

 This makes a rather graceful tree, but does not 

 make as useful a tree as one that has this central 

 leader removed and the open form of pruning 

 made the rule." 



Though all this attention takes time, it 

 is time well spent, for the work of the 

 primer is not alone for to-day, but leaves 

 its impression upon the tree throughout 

 its whole life, and all cutting implements 

 used should be of the best. Any other 

 kind may cause a rugged slashing _ cut, 

 which would mean the dying back of the 

 limb of a young tree for a very consider- 

 able distance. On this point he says: 



"We have seen pruning done with an axe and 

 cross-cut saw and we have also seen these same 

 trees suffering badly from die-back at certain 

 points and from fungus troubles which had ob- 

 tained their entrance to the trees at the point in- 

 jured by the careless worker. By all means, then, 

 treat the operation of pruning trees at the end 

 of this first year from the point of view of pre- 

 serving to its very best the investment so far 

 made and thus as much as may be, insuring a 

 healthy tree capable of performing the tasks that 

 we expect it to perform through the years to 



INFERTILE EGGS KEEP BEST 



A large part of the heavy loss from 

 bad eggs can be obviated by the production 

 of infertile eggs. This has been demon- 

 strated beyond a doubt by the investigations 

 concerning the improvement of the farm 

 egg, which during the past two years have 

 been conducted in the middle west by the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. 



About one-third of the annual loss in 

 eggs in the United States alone, amounting 

 to $15,000,000, is caused by heat which de- 

 velops the embryo of the fertile egg, caus- 

 ing what is known to the trade as a "blood 

 ring." As it is impossible to produce a 

 "blood ring" in an infertile egg, such an 

 egg will stand a higher degree of tem- 

 perature without serious deterioration than 

 will a fertile egg. 



The secretary says if farmers and others 

 engaged in the production of eggs would 

 market their male birds as soon as the 

 hatching season is over, a large saving 

 would be made, as practically every in- 

 fertile egg would grade a first or second 

 if clean and promptly marketed. 



No more simple or efficient method for 

 the improvement of the egg supply of the 

 country could be adopted than the produc- 

 tion of infertile eggs. 



THE BOLL WEEV/L COMPLEX. 



THE COTTOA/ PL/^A/T 



AMONG MA/}^OTf^^P:^£NCM/ES 



BoA. \lC£ ^\B£^W~uCOWP£A 



V££V/C^A/££V/L 



The above interesting chart of the L'nited States 

 Department of .\griculture, Bureau of Entomol- 

 ogy, shows that the boll weevil has 55 species of 

 insects which are known to attack it. 



