288 The Commercial Apple Industry 



out laterals and eventually lower the fruiting area. In 

 pruning water-sprouts, the leader should be cut slightly 

 less than its laterals, a safe proportion being to cut the 

 leader 35 per cent and the laterals about 50 per cent. 



Although it is advisable to distribute the heavy prun- 

 ing over a period of three years, the orchardist should 

 bear in mind that the heavy cutting of one main branch 

 does not necessarily produce the vigor necessary for fruit- 

 ing on the remaining limbs. If one branch is pruned 

 heavily, the water-sprouts will come on that particular 

 limb and not on the others. Therefore, a general mod- 

 erate pruning throughout the top, with careful attention 

 given to thinning out the smaller fruiting wood, will serve 

 to encourage fruiting generally throughout the tree and to 

 afford an opportunity for converting water-sprouts into 

 new fruiting wood in the lower part of the tree. System- 

 atic pruning must be followed for a period of several years 

 if renovation is to be made effective. 



Spraying. 



After pruning the next step in renovation is thorough 

 spraying. Old trees are nearly always badly infested 

 with scale as well as with other insects and diseases. A 

 thorough application of lime-sulfur is a necessary clean-up 

 measure. After the dormant winter spray, the same regu- 

 lar spray program should be followed as is necessary in 

 commercial orchards of the region. It is particularly im- 

 portant in the case of old trees to have a tower on the 

 spray rig in order that the spray will reach the topmost 

 branches. The importance of spraying can not be em- 

 phasized too strongly as essential to the proper renova- 

 tion of the orchard. (See Chapter X.) 



