216 TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



While the other branches are yielding fruit, the trunk will put out new shoots that will be 

 productive when the former ones, having grown too high, will be ready to be cut back in 

 their turn. There are several advantages to this removal: 1°. the propagation of the 

 branches & consequently of their fruit. 2°. the base of the tree continues to be supplied 

 with young branches, the only ones that bear fruit. 3°. trees kept lower are easier to cover 

 during the winter & are better protected by walls that enclose the area where they're 

 planted. 



III. After the winter is over, all dead wood is cut off the fig tree. Also, all of the 

 thin branches that have no hope of yielding any fruit or that are too weak to produce any 

 in good condition are cut off or pruned back to one or two buds. Because on this tree the 

 stout shoots are the ones that yield the most & the best fruit. It's advantageous to shorten 

 parts of these same thick shoots, pruning the longest ones back to a foot long at most. 

 This is to prevent the tree from growing too tall in too short a time & to make these stout 

 shoots grow three or four new shoots instead of the single one that each normally 

 produces. Because, and I'll say it again, the quantity of fruit depends on the number of 

 new branches, since the fruit never emerges more than one time from each bud of the fig 

 tree. Suckers also have to be cut off; they're easily recognized by the flatness of their 

 buds & the large distances between them. If they're needed to fill up an empty space, 

 they're pruned back to three or four buds. 



That's all the pruning (if you wish to call it that) that fig trees planted in open 

 ground will need. Those that are cultivated in containers (they aren't very productive & 

 are outside our topic) require some further care, both in their pruning as well as in the rest 

 of their cultivation. 



Several people recommend, & la Quintinye makes it a rule, 



