526 



Pruning Fruit Trees, and Bushes. [dec, 



Some varieties of apples fruit largely upon the ends of their 

 shoots. This should be disregarded in pruning until the trees 

 are well furnished with branches of fair length, after which it 

 will need to be considered. 



So much judgment in the treatment of different varieties and 

 ndividual trees is needed that it is difficult to train an ordinary 

 abourer to prune with discretion, and much haphazard work, 

 accordingly, is done in large plantations. Therefore it is better 

 to let one or two pruners of known skill and good judgment 

 do all the work, even if this involves its extension all through 

 the autumn, winter, and the early portion of the spring, than to 

 defer it until the ideal time, just when the sap begins to rise, 

 when more hands will be necessary to get through it before the 

 buds open. A large proportion of autumn, winter, or spring 

 pruning, however, is superseded where summer pruning or 

 pinching is pursued. Unfortunately, this work requires to be 

 done in a market grower's busy season, and for that reason it 

 is not commonly attempted in large plantations. As usually 

 pursued in small orchards, it does not save later work materially, 

 and although it conduces to fruitfulness, through opening the 

 insides of trees to sun and air at a time when the foliage is 

 dense, it is capable of improvement. It consists in pinching 

 off lateral shoots to five or six buds, in order to increase their 

 vigour and to give access to sunshine and air. In the autumn, 

 however, the same shoots have to be cut further back to two or 

 three buds. Moreover, when done as early in the summer as 

 this work usually is, a thicket of spray is likely to form where 

 the shoots have been pinched. But if the work be deferred till 

 August it may be completed in one operation, cutting back to 

 two or three buds. The shoots will then be too tough to be 

 pinched off with the finger and thumb nails. There is no 

 doubt that this treatment conduces to the early development 

 of artificial fruit spurs, at the same time helping that of the 

 naturally formed spurs. 



The removal of superfluous main shoots or branches and the 

 pruning of those which require it cannot well be done at the 

 same time as the work just described, or, at any rate, not entirely. 

 In the first place, there will probably be fruit on some of the 

 shoots ; and, secondly, the other work needs to be completed as 



