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and leaves the bark. Such a bolt will not damage the limb or 
interfere with its expansion. 
FRUITFULNESS OF SPURS AND Woop. 
Easy circulation of sap results in formation of new leaves and 
formation of woody tissue and fruit spurs. Pruning by cutting off 
hardened, gnarled, moss-infested twigs and branches forces the 
sap into fresh channels, and new fruiting wood is produced. The 
desiccation of fruiting wood and its barrenness varies with climate 
and soils. Where conditions are favourable, the climate mild ana 
moist, the soil fertile and congenial, spurs and wood will prove 
fruitful for twenty to thirty years, as is instanced by the pear. In 
a dry and parehed climate, on the other hand, or on unsuitable soil, 
the useful life of such wood might not exceed five or six years. 
Apples, plums and many other trees are subject to the same influ- 
ences. Peaches and nectarines require frequent renewing. 
Tue INTERMITTENT Bearing or Fruit TREES 
ean often be avoided by proper manuring. A heavy crop is often 
followed by a light one, the strain on the tree being so great that its 
reserves are more or less depleted and insufficient to feed a full crop 
for the coming season. That exhaustion of the tree, if not the result 
of some plainly explainable cause, can often be prevented by appro- 
priate manuring, when the tree generally bears much more regu- 
larly. As will be seen further on, the fruit buds are formed a 
season or two before they blossom and set, and if that period of 
formation coincides with the time that the streneth of the tree is 
overtaxed by heavy bearing, it follows that the blossoms will set 
badly and the cropping will suffer. This can be counteracted by 
providing an adequate quantity of readily assimilable fertilisers, 
bearing always in mind that an excess of nitrogenous manure 
favours wood growth instead of flower buds and that phosphates 
assist in developing the fruiting qualities. 
Well-grown fruit trees generally begin to bear in four years— 
stone fruit earlier—when they should not be allowed to overbear 
or else they become stunted and unproductive. 
Root PRUNING. 
Some trees, and more especially apricots, exhibit at times an 
exuberant wood growth, and fruit but sparingly, or not at all, all 
the energy of the plant being diverted towards the branches. Root 
pruning often induces those trees to bear. This is done in 
the autumn, when the tree has finished its active growth for the 
season and when the sap runs sluggishly, the shock being at that 
time less severe, while during the following few weeks the energy of 
the tree will be partly spent towards the transformation of fruit 
buds from the leaf buds, which, unless checked, would next spring 
