290 



Root-pruning Fruit Trees. 



[JULY, 



Marketing. — Milk chickens are killed and plucked in the 

 usual way. It is only necessary to turn the wings and throw 

 up the breast meat. They should be neatly packed in grease- 

 proof paper-lined boxes holding two or four dozen, the cost 

 of which should not exceed 1 JcL per dozen birds. 



ROOT-PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 

 Albert J. Manning, 



Lecturer in Horticulture, Herefordshire Cottnty Council. 



It not infrequently happens that certain varieties of fruit 

 trees are found to be very slow in coming into bearing. This 

 is particularly noticeable with such kinds of apples as 

 Peasgood's Nonsuch, Blenheim Orange, Bramley's Seedling, 

 and Annie Elizabeth, when grown on the free stock (seedling 

 apple), and the same remark applies to most pears on the 

 free stock, also to stone fruits. When growing for market 

 this is a serious matter, as all the expenses of cultivation 

 have to be met, if the future well-being of the trees is a 

 consideration, whether any returns are forthcoming or not, 

 and as there is a demand for these varieties, it is useless to 

 suggest that growers should avoid planting them. 



In a large number of districts the production of fruit can 

 be hastened by planting trees on dwarfing stocks, but in 

 some cases this procedure cannot be considered a commercial 

 success ; on really rich soils these stocks are to be recom- 

 mended, but even then vigorous growing varieties do not 

 always come quickly into bearing when left to themselves. 



Root-formation. — When the roots are coarse and strike 

 deeply into the soil and subsoil, the shoots produced are also 

 coarse and gross, and fail to mature sufficiently to develop 

 blossom buds, with a consequent failure to produce fruit. 

 Fruit trees, to bear freely, must have a good fibrous root 

 system, and these roots must be near the surface. 



Trees growing in this way will eventually bear fruit, and 

 that heavily, provided that they are sufficiently far apart to 

 allow of free extension, and that the growths made by them 

 are not too severely cut back. Thinning the branches to 

 about 18 inches apart, and removing the unripened points, 

 is all the pruning that should be given to trees growing 



