Sept. 2, 1901.1 THE TROPICAL 
AGRtCXJLTTIPJST. 
157 
early stage, they will begin to carry. The pinch- 
ing of the superabundant laterals is best done in 
the early autumn, when buds, which would other- 
wise have remained sterile, are transformed into 
fruit buds. This operation will besides save much 
butchering in the winter time, as, by suppressing 
either entirely or partly an undesirable shoot at an 
early stage, much sap, which would be turned into 
wood growth, destined to be cut off in the winter, 
is saved, and the energy and the vitality of the 
plant thrown into more useful channels. This 
practice leads to the enunciation of the fact that 
severe winter pruning induces wood growth, while 
summer pruning tends to fruit production. Thus, 
if a tree is stunted, and for some obscure reason 
does not make much wood, but shows a tendency 
to produce more fruit buds than it can safely carry, 
prune close in the winter ; if, on the other hand, 
a tree grows so quickly that all its energy is wasted 
in wood and leaves, and does not pause to produce 
fruit, either summer pruning or ruot pruning will 
throw it into bearing. By such means the plant 
realising, while in full flow of sap, that its constitu- 
tion has been attacked and its life menaced, will 
make an effort to reproduce its kind forthwith and 
the result will be the evolution of leaf buds into 
fruit-bearing spurs. Subsequent prnnings consist 
mostly in rubbing off water shoots, in suppressing 
branches that cross and rub against one another, 
and trimming the twigs and the fresh growth made 
during the season's growth. As this stage the tree 
will have ceased making much wood, and will begin 
the business of setting and carrying fruit. 
Reduction of Swei,lings and Hide-bound Tree.s- 
At the time of pruning swellings are occasionally 
noticed on the stems or limbs of trees. These 
swellings are either due to the disproportionate 
growth of the scion or fruiting part, compared with 
the stock or root end of the tree. 
They may also be due to strings used in previ- 
ous seasons as ties, which have cut through the bark. 
These swellings, which intefere with the free cir- 
culation of the sap, must be reduced. This is best 
done by running longitudinal incisions from C down- 
wards to the stock B. The bark will thus expand, 
and, should the deformity continue the next season, 
these incisions should be renewed. 
Trees which have been neglected, or 
whose growth has been stunted by the 
presence of moss and lichen, scale 
insects |or other pests, or by want of 
drainage of the soil, by the aridity and 
poverty of the ground, or are debili- 
tated in consequence of having been 
allowed to bear too early, often show 
a miserable, sickly appearance. Their 
growth is stopped, the bark becomes 
tough and leathery ; they are hide- 
bound. The cause of the mischief may 
have already been removed, and still 
they will make no growth. 
Such trees should be similarly treated 
at the time of pruning. They should be 
cut hard back and at pruning time the 
knife should be run longitudinally 
through the bark, from the heel to the Incisions to 
top of the stem, and even along the reduce the 
main limbs. It is also advisable to swelling of the 
whitewash the stems of such trees, graft or the 
Lime, in the shape of whitevi'ash, is stem. 
Well known to be beneficial in most bark diseases. 
Under this treatment the stunted trees of last 
season are seen to spring into fresh and healthier 
growth. The cambium or,growing wood layers force 
the strip of leathery bark apart, the stems and 
limbs are soon seen to swell, the sap runs freely 
from the roots to the top branches of the plant 
EHid the whole growth looks healthier. 
Incisions to ContbOI, the Growth op 
Shoots iND Buds. 
Should, during the pre- 
ceding growing season, 
any one of the lateral 
branches have been imper- 
fectly developed, it should 
be cut back lightly when 
pruning, and, if it is much 
too small compared with 
the others, it is sometimes 
advisable to make imme- 
diately above the point of 
attachment to the branch 
(B) a notch or small in- 
cision through the outside 
layers of growing wood, so 
as, to force the sap to run 
up the branch and develop 
it. The out should be pre- 
vented from healing too 
rapidly. It is also some- 
times desirable for the 
symmetry of the tree to 
force a dormant bud into 
Incisions.— Du Brenil. 
growth, anc[ in that case an incision as shown at A 
will be found useful. On the other hand, should a 
strong branch become uncontrollable in spite of 
heading back, it may, in extreme cases, be alavisable 
to check the flow of sap towards it by making an 
incision as shown at C, immediately below its point 
of attachment to the stem. 
Thus we have a means of transforming wood bud 
into a fruit bud and vice versa, by making a cut 
below the rudimentary bud if we want a fruit bud, 
or above if it we want a wood bad. These methods 
should, however, be only used with discrimination, 
else more harm than good will ensue. 
Renovating Old Teees. 
Fruit trees, planted in good soil and possessed of 
a good stem, are susceptible of living to a great 
age. It, however, often happens that through years 
of neglect their branches have grown to excessive 
length and are, to a great extent, deprived of fruit 
shoots, or that the crop is carried up too high, hence 
adding considerably to cost of 
gathering ; or again the trees 
are diseased, and in order 
to successfully combat the 
pests which inteet them they 
must be shortened in. Again 
the variety of fruit the tree 
bears may be unsuitable, and 
it may be expedient to change 
the variety by means of bud- 
ding or of grafting. In all 
these esses ii; may be desir- 
able, or even imperative, to 
shorten the tree and head it 
back. For that purpose the 
saw is called into requisition, 
and the cuts smoothly pared 
with a sharp knife, the wound 
being then smeard with clay, Top of an old plum tree 
or with the shellac paint, or headed back for the pur- 
some of the other paint al- pose of renovating, 
ready referred to. 
The figure illustrates an old plum tree which has 
thus been renovated. The plum, better than meat 
other fruit trees, stands cutting back hard to old 
wood without showing syrnptioms of dying back, 
which, under similar conditions, are often shown by 
apples and more particularly peaches and nectarines. 
Early in the spring, the roots of the tree, which 
may be good for many years more, become aciive, 
the sap commences to move upwards and a number 
cf hidden and dormant buds are excited into life. 
Shoots burst out of the old stumps and as tl ey 
grow they should be thinned out to the number 0£ 
three or four only, well placed and likely to form a 
