22 



Pruning Fruit Trees. 



[APRIL, 



PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 

 Walter P. Wright. 

 II. Established Trees. 



In the first paper on pruning* the subject was considered 

 in its first and most important aspect, that of so manipulating 

 young trees as to prevent the necessity for laborious and costly 

 pruning operations in the future, the point being that the 

 only true economy is to shape the trees at a stage when a few 

 strokes of the knife suffice. We may now proceed to consider 

 the method of dealing with developed trees, but it cannot, 

 unfortunately, be assumed that every grower is in the happy 

 position of having trees under his care which were properly 

 attended to while young. A great many have inherited a 

 legac}' of mismanaged trees. The task of dealing with the 

 latter is more difficult, but, except in rare cases, not absolutely 

 impossible. The principal fruits will be taken separately. 



Apples. — Inasmuch as different sorts of apples vary in 

 character, a rule of pruning entirely free from exceptions 

 cannot be laid down ; but the great majority of the varieties 

 correspond closely enough to each other for the apple to be 

 •classed as a spur bearer. The young wood bearers, such as 

 Lady Sudeley, Irish Peach, and Cornish Gilliflower, are few 

 in number and hardly of the first order of merit. The routine 

 pruning of the apple may differ slightly from that, of a pronounced 

 spur-bearer, such as the pear, in that young wood, if well 

 ripened, will frequently form fruit buds along the greater part 

 of its length. Generally speaking, breast-wood should be kept 

 down, but where there is room a young shoot may be allowed 

 to extend, and, in its second year, it will probably fruit. 



If the main branches of most apples are kept thin — say a foot 

 apart at a yard from their base — they will, as they mature, 

 form spurs, which will break into leaf and blossom in spring. 

 The wood shoots developing from them may be summer 

 pruned and cut back close to their base at the winter pruning. 

 Any side shoots other than those from spurs may be treated 

 in the same way. 



Summer Pruning. —Summer pruning is of great advantage 

 to the apple, as indeed it is to all spur-bearing fruits, One 



* Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Vol. XIV, p. 705, March, 190S. 



