CHAPTER XV. 



PRUNING FIG TREES. 



About a century ago Thomas Andrew Knight, 

 the highest authority of that time, wrote in Horti- 

 cultural Transactions that pinching terminal buds 

 of fig trees stopped the elongation of branches and 

 repulsed the sap to be used where it would improve 

 fruit; that by bending sterile branches downward, 

 and fastening them with considerable strain wood 

 growth was checked, and they were rendered more 

 fruitful. In 1839, Lindley described a system of 

 removing two-thirds of the new wood each year, by 

 which treatment, said he, "the fig tree has been 

 rendered more fruitful than by any other method. ' ' 

 Of fruit pruning, said the same writer: "If the 

 late figs which never ripen, are abstracted, the early 

 figs the next year are more numerous and larger." 



The persuasiveness of these authors should cause 

 experiments to be made along this line by every 

 grower. The facts they teach, described by all 

 modern botanists, result from prevalent opinions 

 that anything which checks growth of top wood, 

 or fruit, causes the vitality of the tree to be stored 

 within the tissues, unless immature fruit exists, in 

 which case it is concentrated in enlarging what re- 

 mains on the tree. Fig growers around Paris regu- 

 larly prune terminal buds, and remove some of the 



