IO 
STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 
how the trees looked in April, 1905, ^ ie ^ me the first prun¬ 
ing. No. i had formed five vigorous branches, No. 2 produced tour 
and No. 3 but two. 
The five branches on No. i were saved to form a framework tor 
the tree and were cut back to about one foot in length. These are 
well distributed about the trunk, but have the fault that they are 
too close together. The lowest limb might well be double the dis¬ 
tance from the top that it now is. No. ia shows No. i after it was 
pruned, with the idea of making an open-centered tree. 
No. 2 is also open to the objection that the limbs are too close. 
All of these were saved to form the frame work of a tree with a 
leader as is shown in No. 2a. The only difference between this and 
No. ia being that the topmost branch was left longer than the 
others. The pruner of this tree is open to severe criticism m that 
he has allowed three vigorous limbs to grow from near the surface 
of the ground. These limbs could serve no useful purpose and so 
only rob the other limbs of plant food. Such growths are best pre¬ 
vented by pinching off the buds early in the season. 
No. 3 failed to throw out enough branches to form a suitable 
top. The two which were produced are nearly opposite, so that a 
bad crotch would soon result. Both branches were cut back to the 
second bud, as shown in 3a, in the hopes of inducing dormant buds 
to push out lower down. 
