206 Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 



There is one thing we should always bear in 

 mind, that the switches on our trees as they 

 come from the nursery never produce fruit 

 Their function is to produce and hold up other 

 wood that will in turn produce more switches. 

 Finally we see the fruit buds forming on wood 

 that is three, four or more years removed from 

 the body of the tree. This being the case, we 

 should think of these limbs that we find on 

 the two-year-old tree as it comes from the nurs- 

 ery as the scaffold limbs, the foundation so to 

 speak, upon which we are to form or build our 

 tree. In order that this scaflfold be strong, we 

 should be careful not to leave these parts too 

 long, remembering that the further from the 

 body we get the load ,he easier the limb, will 

 bfe broken. If you were to allow a switch three 

 feet long to remain upon a young tree when 

 set and it should make from its tip a growth of 

 three feet, the first season, and the same the 

 second, it would not take a very heavy weight 

 at the end of this, then a nine-foot limb, to 

 break it down. But if it had been cut back 

 thf first year to four inches, the second to six 

 o^yight, and to ten or twelve the third season, 

 itf^p^duld have been able to have held up a much 

 heavier weight Then in the building of our 

 trees we should make the cuts short, also bear- 



