TJIE PRUNING AND TRAINING OF FRUIT TREES IN JAPAN. 585 



growths are trained in position, bending them down with straw Hnes 

 to keep the centre spreading and open. Bending the shoots is carried 

 out according to the vigour of the shoot. Thus the growth of the 

 shoots being regulated, an equihbrium of growth can be secured with 

 ease. These modes of training which aim mainly at early fruiting, 

 though simple and imperfect from the ornamental point of view, seem 

 to answer the purpose of our cottage-farmers or small-growers. 



Citrous fruit trees and loquats are left alone, the only treatment 

 they receive being manuring, mulching, cultivation, and rarely spray- 

 ing. But they produce immense crops in alternate years. Lately, our 

 veteran growers have learnt the necessity of pruning for the well- 

 being of the tree, and they practise this work in some parts. 



Kaki has until recently been the chief among our orchard fruits. 

 It has been a most popular and widely cultivated fruit for a long time ; 

 but its cultivation under rational treatment is of quite recent growth. 

 Sweet varieties are used for dessert, but astringent ones only become 

 eatable when sweetened by curing or some other process. Cured 

 products are still in great demand in our markets. The process 

 of curing is as follows : Each fruit is pared and sun-dried by being 

 suspended on straw lines (fig. 174). To facilitate this process, a bit of 

 shoot is allowed to remain attached to each fruit stalk like the letter T, 

 and hj this the fruiting shoots are of necessity broken with the fruits. 

 This process of breaking the shoots has by chance become a mode of 

 pruning (fig. 170). Far better results have always been obtained than 

 when the fruit alone is gathered. Growers became well acquainted 

 with this fact, and have adopted the process. In Tono-o-mura, a 

 date plum region between Kyoto and Nara, an expert named 

 Tajuro Yoshioka has independently brought about the same process 

 and succeeded in renovating worn-out trees in his village. His first 

 method does not differ from the process already practised in other 

 localities. By this method every fruiting shoot is broken at its base, 

 while the sterile or non-fruiting ones are left unpruned, and new 

 vigorous shoots start from buds of the remaining part the next spring. 

 They do not fruit in the same year, but they grow vigorously and 

 develop plump and well-matured buds on the apex as well as in the 

 leaf-axils. These buds, especially a few near the top, always start 

 fruiting shoots in the next year. On the contrary, if the fruiting 

 shoots are left unpruned after the fruit is gathered, being exhausted 

 they give weak, slender sterile shoots in the next spring, and some- 

 times they perish, worn out by the overwork of fruiting. Next year 

 again, if these weak shoots are left unpruned, worse results would 

 follow. In this way, when no pruning is done weak shoots grow 

 in turn near the apex of the preceding ones, until at last the tree 

 abounds in weak and valueless shoots (fig. 169). Fruits borne on such 

 shoots are worthless or liable to drop prematurely. In some varieties, 

 for example " Zenji-maru," the pistillate flower always appears on the 

 stronger shoots, whilst the staminate ones are always borne in clusters 

 on weak, slender shoots. Thus it is necessary to get the strong shoots 

 by means of pruning (breaking) worn-out shoots, to increase the yield, 



