WINTER PRUNING EXPERIMENTS WITH APPLE TREES. 159 
able to adopt the " knife-edge ringing " method recommended by 
Barker and Lees * ; for the long bare branches of the untipped trees 
of certain varieties are obviously undesirable where a long-lived 
permanent tree is required. 
Those of our varieties which most require " tipping " in order to 
make the branches stouter and more able to hold themselves up 
under a crop are ' Allington ' (fig. 34), ' Lane's,' and ' Cox's ' ; and, 
to a less extent, ' Derby ' and ' Grenadier,' the latter chiefly on 
account of its tip-fruiting habit. Varieties failing to furnish their 
branches with spurs, and requiring tipping on this account, are 
'Bismarck' (fig. 39), 'Worcester' (fig. 37), and 'Newton Wonder.' It 
does not follow that varieties not named in these two lists require 
little if any tipping for permanent trees ; but there undoubtedly 
are such varieties, and ' Norfolk Beauty ' comes nearer to this cate- 
gory than any other of our fifteen. ' Bramley ' (not included in our 
experiment) is certainly another ; for although it makes bare branches 
while young, if not allowed to get too thick-headed, it will often 
clothe them with spurs or laterals as it gets older. Neither does it 
follow that varieties which need tipping on account of either of these 
points must necessarily be closely tipped when required for short- 
lived " fillers." Here, as already mentioned, quick cropping is more 
important than shape of tree ; and much (in shape of tree) must be 
sacrificed on this account. 
Habit of Fruiting. 
In habit of fruiting we find even more extreme differences between 
varieties than in habit of growth. But these differences, though 
obvious enough to any trained eye, are by no means easy to express 
either in words or figures. 
In counting the blossom buds a classification has in all cases been 
made, as a guide to the natural habit of the variety ; the classifica- 
tion is, of course, of little use on the " tipped and spurred " trees, 
since so much of the blossom is cut away in pruning ; the results are 
therefore presented only for the unpruned trees. Table VIII. gives 
the figures for three classes of blossom buds distinguished on an 
arbitrary basis ; " terminals " are those at the ends of shoots of the 
previous year 2 inches long or more ; " axillaries " are those formed 
in the axils of the previous year's leaves (not terminal) ; and " spurs " 
are all the rest, i.e. those at the end of shoots less than 2 inches long. 
It will be seen that a majority of the varieties have formed in 
these two years a considerable number of " terminals " and " spurs," 
and few " axillaries " ; and further, that seasonal changes may vary 
the proportions of the three classes to a considerable extent. But 
the extremes, 'Bismarck' (fig. 39) and 'Lord Derby' (fig. 38), are 
so widely separated that one would hardly expect seasonal differences 
* Annual Reports, Agricultural and Horticultural Research Station, Long 
Ashton, 1919, 1920. 
