172 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



took on new life, blossomed freely on the limited growth of the preced- 

 ing season, put forth new shoots, and bore a fine crop. Every branch of 

 the diminished number was an efficient fruit-bearer, save a few, still 

 crowded, which the pruner was too timid to cut off. The fruit was 

 strikingly uniform in size, appearance, and regularity of shape, and of 

 superior flavor. It was plainly of higher grade and in greater quantity 

 than that on adjacent trees on similar soil, with the same treatment 

 except as to pruning. 



If orange trees should be pruned, and if the pruning is of great 

 importance in growing high-grade fruit in large ratio, and in producing 

 good crops, undiminished in quantity by the process, especially in mer- 

 chantable quantity, then there must be a certain shape and condition of 

 the tree aimed at in the work. The mind of the pruner will entertain 

 an ideal form to which he will try to bring the tree; but as ideals are 

 always in practice unattainable, he will come far short of the perfect 

 shape he desires, especially if the tree has been neglected.- 



At the foundation of the methods of procedure there must be princi- 

 ples governing the work. These principles can not be arbitrary, the 

 dictum of a sensible, experienced man — to say nothing of a crank — 

 but must be founded on well-known laws of the life and growth of plants; 

 nor must we be tempted, in acting according to our knowledge of par- 

 ticular laws applicable to the work, to disregard other laws or to assume 

 too much knowledge and go astray riding a hobby. 



The forming of the young tree is admirably described in Wickson's 

 " California Fruits," after the method of J. H. Reed, of Riverside. 



This paper will have to do with some of the principles and work that 

 apply to bearing trees. The ideal object to be kept in mind by the 

 pruner is to cause the bearing orange tree, just like the well-formed young 

 tree, to have only such limbs grow as radiate outward from the trunk 

 or divided stem. The lower limbs, as they have served as fruit bearers, 

 will curve downward, and the higher ones will extend upward at an angle 

 more or less acute, according to their age and bearing stage. Then each 

 limb, if its vigor entitles it to remain, is to be treated as an independent 

 unit and provided with ample space for the work of its foliage. The 

 shoots, often quite large, that grow vigorously upright from the out- 

 ward extending limbs, and the suckers — sometimes as large as principal 

 limbs, if natural growth has not been interfered with — originating in 

 the body of the tree and towering up through the favored branches 

 with intent to form a second story, must be taken out. In some trees 

 such treatment becomes at times heroic, if neglect has prevailed. In 

 others, a choice must sometimes be made in their favor, if they have 

 continued so long as to leave the original top branches diminutive and 

 weak. In general, if these aspiring growths remain, they will ulti- 

 mately dominate the tree and change it to a wood-forming or timber 



