DWARF TREE PRUNING AND TRAINING 369 



first pruning at planting time, the annual cutting was 

 done during the dormant season at any time before 

 growth started in the spring. 



As the trees became aged — 15 to 25 years — the method 

 of pruning gradually flattened and broadened the tops, 

 and the nature of growth gradually lessened wood pro- 

 duction below, so that, when the author saw them, each 

 tree was like an equilateral triangle set on its apex with 

 its trunk as a pedestal. The tops were 10 or 12 feet 

 across, and the height, including the trunk, about 12 feet. 

 The result was that the top of the orchard looked as if 

 cut with a huge lawn mower, it was so even in height and 

 the trees so wide-spreading as almost to present a con- 

 tinuous carpet of green, except for narrow blank spaces 

 between the trees and in the centers between the squares 

 formed by each four trees. In the handling of dwarf 

 apples, cherries and other fruits the same general rules 

 apply. 



Because of considerable agitation on the part of certain 

 fruit growers and nurserymen, the fruit growers' associa- 

 tions of New York requested the experiment station at 

 Geneva to conduct experiments in the growing of such 

 trees in orchards of commercial size. An experiment was 

 therefore carried out during ten 3rears in three different 

 parts of the state and the findings reported in Bulletin 406 

 of the station. In the main the report is unfavorable to 

 dwarf apple trees as a business proposition. 



271. Pruning dwarf apples.— We may as well confess, writes 

 U. P. Hedrick concerning these experiments, that the pruning of 

 these trees has been most unsatisfactory. A bad start was made, 

 as the trees, for the most part, were cut to whips at transplanting 

 time. No doubt, in the light of later experience, it would have been 

 better to grow them in nursery rows a year longer and then make 

 the start toward forming the heads (270). The trouble in cutting a 

 whip at transplanting time is that branches fail to break forth as 

 abundantly as they do in the nursery row unchecked by transplanting. 



Summer pruning, supplementing winter pruning, is part of the 

 recognized jfearly treatment of dwarf trees. The more it is desired 



