14 PIOTORIAL PBAOTIGAL FBUIT QROWINO. 



Cbapter IIK— CRe fl B C of Pruning. 



You mny make a great myster}' of pruning if you like ; or you may make it 

 as plain as the alphabet — it is all a question of character. There are students 

 of chemistry, albeit of the elementary class, in whose eyes carbonic acid 

 gas, most commonplace of compounds, becomes invested with a deep and 

 inscrutable fascination when referred to as OOj, and to those of a like order 

 of mind the development of pruning into a great, weird mystery, only to be 

 approached through a tangle of technicalities, is a satisfying and grateful 

 business. 



It is not for me to debar these gentlemen from the enjoyment of a whirl 

 of phrases and formulae, but on the other hand I am not called upon to 

 provide them with their special intellectual pabulum. The idea I have 

 before me in the present notes is to reduce pruning to its simplest elements, 

 in order that the most inexperienced person may read, instantly get to 

 work, and in due season reap a full harvest of fruit. 



A great help to a practical grasp of the A B C of pruning is a supply of 

 shoots of the various kinds of fruit trees to be operated upon. By referring 

 to these while printed instructions are being read, each point can be mas- 

 tered. The differences between them are considerable. In an Apple tree the 

 shoots are usually brown, relatively thick and plump, the fruit buds round and 

 grey in colour. The latter are often found on the long shoots, as well as on the 

 cluster of very short shoots and buds which is technically termed a spur. In 

 a Pear the shoots are usually smaller and darker in colour ; while the fruit 

 buds, which are smaller and more pointed than those of Apples, are produced 

 almost exclusively on spurs, very rarely on young wood. Plums and 

 Damsons are also spur, not young wood, bearers. When Plum trees are 

 young they often produce a great deal of strong wood, but when they have 

 settled down and become well furnished with spurs the summer growths are 

 usually much smaller even than those of Pears. They are very dark in 

 colour, and the fruit buds small and pointed. Cherries, like Plums, are apt 

 to be gross at first, and even when they have settled down to the serious', 

 business of life it is common for them to produce a good deal of breastwood. 

 This is grey in colour, studded with bold brown buds, some of which are 

 fruit buds. The spurs are simply clusters of fat, rounded brown buds. The 

 popular " Heart " Cherries, indeed nearly all with the exception of the 

 Morello, are principally spur bearers, but dislike much pruning. Peaches 

 (with Nectarines) resemble their cousins the Plums in producing a good deal 

 of strong wood when young. When they have been cured of this vicious 

 habit by being lifted they assume a more modest habit of growth, and 

 annually produce a crop of young shoots 15 to 18 inches long, on which the 

 fruit is borne. Apricots bear for the most part on spurs. 



A consideration of the foregoing brings the following facts into 

 prominence : — 



1. Established trees of Apples must not necessarily be denuded of their 



young wood, like Pears. 



2. Pears must not become smothered with young wood. 



3. Plums should be lifted to check over-vigorous root action when 



young and afterwards spurred. 



