248 



PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF PRUNING 



FIG. 210— FUNGI ATTACK 

 INJURED BARK 



Stripping (99) may also help. It is 

 prcjbably safer than girdling. 



Just how much pruning may be 

 done in mature pear trees must be 

 left to the pruner's judgment and 

 experience, the idea being more to 

 thin and thus improve the quality of 

 the fruit than to remove wood for 

 its own sake. Such a policy will 

 tend toward regular annual bearing. 

 Pruning of this kind, however, can- 

 not wholly obviate thinning the 

 fruit itself in summer. Both prac- 

 tices are necessary as a general rule. 

 196. Pear blight, if it attacks the 

 trees, will upset even the best prun- 

 ing methods. Yet the damage this disease may do may 

 be very largel}' prevented by a 

 proper system of training (173). 

 Heavy pruning should l)e avoided 

 as much as ])ossil)le ; also all soil 

 management that makes for heavy 

 growth — notably over-cultivation, 

 fiver-fertilizing with nitrogenous 

 manures and the excessive use of 

 leguminrius co\'er crops — because 

 trees in rank growth are more sus- 

 ce[)ti1)le to blight than those less 

 amplv nourished. Since the chief 

 points of infection are the blos- 

 soms, thence through the fruit 

 spurs to the branches, the develop- 

 ment of fruit spurs <>u main limljs 

 should ]>c ])revented as much as 

 possible. Instead, the growth of fig. 2n-PEAR^STUB ad- 

 strong new wood should be encour- jhis .stub was blighted be- 



1 ,1 , r 'j. cause the pruning saw was 



aged so that new fruit spurs ma not sterilized. 



