452 THE APPLE 



cultivations. Over-irrigation gives soft, watery, poorly flavored and 

 poorly colored fruit which does not keep or carry well. Some of 

 the best orchardists in the Inland Valleys, who used to irrigate 

 four or five times a year, now irrigate but once or twice, and keep 

 up cultivation the rest of the summer. 



2. Pruning. The methods of pruning orchards in the Coast 

 Region are just the opposite of those prevailing in the inland 

 regions. The climatic and soil conditions of the Coast Region 

 tend to produce a rapid growth of wood, and as a result fruit trees 

 come into bearing several years later than those in the interior. 

 They are often made unfruitful by this luxuriant growth, and have 

 to be checked in order to throw them into bearing. It is advisable 

 to winter-prune some orchards on the heavier soils, but a large 

 proportion of Coast Region orchards, especially apple orchards on 

 the lowlands, should be pruned in summer or spring. Many orchards 

 are pruned when in full blossom, sometimes as much as half the 

 tree being pruned off at that time. The effect of this treatment is 

 to check the exuberant growth and induce fruitfulness. Root- 

 pruning is also practiced to a limited extent. 



On the other hand, in the drier inland regions fruit trees come 

 into bearing very early and run to fruit instead of to wood. They 

 often bear themselves to death unless properly managed. The aim 

 of the inland orchardist is not to reduce wood growth by summer 

 pruning, but to increase it by winter pruning. Practically all the 

 pruning in this region is done in winter or early spring. 



There is a similar difference of practice in the training of fruit 

 trees on the two sides of the Cascades. On the western side, fruit 

 trees are headed 4 or 5 feet high, as in the old fruit sections of the 

 Eastern seaboard. Every effort is made to elevate the tree into 

 the air and to keep its top well thinned so that the fruit will color 

 and ripen well. In western British Columbia the fruit-growers do 

 not cut back the leader at the time of planting, or at any other 

 time. Some claim that the ideal apple tree for that climate is one 

 which does not have a spreading top, but instead has a tall, strong, 

 central leader reaching high into the air, with many small limbs 

 distributed evenly along it. 



On the eastern side of the Cascades, fruit trees are headed low 

 because of the high winds prevailing in that region and because of 



