Fruit-growing in Kent. 
105 
established slight pruning will be necessary once in two or three 
years. Not nearly enough attention is paid to pruning the 
trees after they have become fair sized. Now and then a raid 
is made upon those that are most bushy, which are hacked 
and cut about unmercifully, and it is not strange that apple- 
trees of the host sorts, invariably the most delicate, decay pre- 
maturely. Very few growers prune their apple-trees scien- 
tific all v, or manage them thoroughly in other respects. Here 
and there a plantation may be found where the trees have re- 
ceived systematic and proper treatment from the date of 
planting, where good fruit is produced in abundance; and it is 
asse rted confidently that the land in Kent really suitable for 
apple-growing may be made to yield fruit not much inferior in 
quality to the traditional Nonpareils, Scarlet Nonpareils, Gtdden 
and Ribston Pippins, and other sorts, whose sweet memories 
linger yet in the recollection of apple-loving octogenarians. To 
insure this, however, there must in most cases be a fresh start ; 
the land must be unexhausted, the management more skilful, 
the treatment altogether more liberal. The pruning and 
clearing out of large apple-trees which have never been 
properly pruned, mHst not be done per saltum, — at one fell 
swoop, — but should rather be extended over several years. If 
large trees that are embarrassed with branches and filled up 
with " spindly " shoots, are cleared out at once, canker will 
certainly be produced in those of a delicate nature, and the 
most hardy sorts will be seriously weakened. It is better to 
prune apple-trees in the autumn, as soon as the fruit has been 
gathered, because it is more likely that fruit-buds will be de- 
veloped from pruning at that season than after winter cutting, 
which usually tends to create comparatively unproductive wood. 
The pruner of trees crowded with wood must aim at gradually 
cutting the oldest superfluous branches, so that each branch left 
may stand out by itself and get a full share of air, light, and 
sun. If the fruit-grower employ only ordinary labourers to 
prune his trees, he should examine each tree himself, and mark 
with chalk those branches which he thinks should be cut away. 
In the case of young trees that have been properly trained, and of 
older trees that have been reduced to a proper state by gradual 
pruning as above described, the amount of pruning required 
is very trifling. The fruit in most sorts comes upon " spurs," 
or short twigs, on wood that is at least two years old, generally 
from buds that are covered till late in autumn with clusters of 
dead leaves. The chief objects are to ensure a proper supply of 
these fruit-bearing spurs, and to keep them from being crowded 
and starved out by unfruitful shoots or suckers that grow out 
on all sides in many sorts. There are a few varieties, how- 
