24 
PRUNING 
One- Year Apple Trees in Nursery. 
Some varieties are usually straight whips 
but others like the Jonathan almost In- 
variably form branched tops. With the 
whips all the pruning required Is to cut 
off the top at the desired height. With 
the varieties that branch they may be 
pruned as U they were whips or the same 
as the two-year as described on page 32. 
it should go and train it so it 
will not be necessary to prune 
it so heavily. If you get the 
tree the right shape to begin 
with, you will not have to cut 
it so heavily later on. 
It is only a very few years 
since everyone advised cut- 
ting back one-half to one- 
third of the new growth of 
the trees for the first few 
years. Now the best grow- 
ers are not cutting their trees 
back so heavily. They are 
allowing more of the wood to 
remain, and in this way they 
bring the trees into bearing 
younger. As soon as the 
trees come into bearing the 
strength of the tree is given 
to producing fruit rather 
than wood. 
Time to Pruning can be 
PniTiA done anytime dur- 
n uiic jj g winter 
after the leaves fall and be- 
fore the sap starts in the 
spring, except in the arid sec- 
tion of the West and in the 
extreme North, where the 
pruning should be done very 
late in the winter or early 
spring. Do not prune when 
the wood is frozen, as the 
wounds will not heal as well. 
In pruning, cut all branches off close to the main limb. Never leave 
a stub. The stub will never heal; but, if the branch is cut close, the tree 
will cover the wound with new growth in a short time. 
Paint all wounds over % inch in diameter with a wax of thick white 
lead and raw linseed oil paint. 
Dead or diseased branches should be cut out. 
Before pruning the tree at planting-time you should have in mind 
a, certain style which you are going to follow. Choose the one that you 
like and follow that method, and you will succeed. Two men growing 
fruit under exactly the same conditions may follow different methods 
and both succeed. 
See special chapter under Apples, Peaches, etc., for the different 
habits of growth of each kind of tree and the special directions for 
pruning them. 
Some Reasons Why Trees Do Not Bear 
Pollination Many varieties of apple, pear, plum, etc., are more or less 
sclf-sterile. A variety that is sclf-sterile is one whose 
pollen does not fertilize its own blossom. The yellow pollgn dust of other 
blossoms is necessary in order to make it set fruit. If a blossom of a self- 
sterile variety were protected from wind and insects by a paper bag so 
that no pollen from another variety could get to it, it would fail to 
develop. While a variety may be absolutely self-sterile, its pollen is all 
