HOUSE AND GARDEN 
March, i 
912 
this orchard at a profit. Mr. West knew everything and I knew 
nothing, practically, about the work, but already I had discovered 
one weakness in his system that I could correct and that would 
help to equalize matters between us. 
“Mr. West, will you give me an old tree to prune?” I asked 
one day. 
The books had been very definite on one point. Have an ideal 
in your mind. Whether you decide on the low head, the high 
head, de-horning or heading in, doesn’t matter, but you must 
have a fixed ideal. That has been a sad hindrance to me ever 
since. T have hunted for that ideal, hunted among my high trees 
to pick. A low tree saves work and therefore money. Sun and 
air must get to every apple on the tree if it is to have size and 
color. And size and color mean added value. A tree is most 
symmetrical that has three or four scaffold limbs, or main 
branches, which support the smaller ones that bear the fruit. 
These scaffold limbs divide and subdivide as they extend from 
the trunk of the tree. In trimming an old tree you want to bear 
this in mind and come as near as possible to these conditions. 
Remember, then, that the fruit must have sun and air, the main 
limbs are best reduced to three or four and the high tree must 
be lowered. None of these things has to be done the first year. 
Where the hills rise from the valley of the Connecticut, I knew a region of forgotten farms — a lovely place, the loveliest I have ever seen — and 
yet it had been overlooked 
and sought it in my low trees, but I have not yet found a symptom 
of it. Maybe it comes only in very young trees, but anyway it 
has troubled me so much that most of the trimming of the trees 
was handed over to others, because I was hunting, always hunting 
an ideal. My problem was really simple. It was to bring those 
trees down to manageable height, and to bring them down by 
such methods as would allow them to keep on bearing meanwhile. 
They must feed me and clothe me while they were coming up, or 
rather down, to my theories. 
I know very little about trimming apple trees, and I speak with 
much diffidence on the subject. But there are certain general 
principles that seem to be common sense. The tree must be kept 
low, or brought low, if it has grown up in the air. Not because 
it looks prettier, but because it is easier to spray, to prune and 
but all must be borne in mind, as the result to be obtained in two 
or three seasons’ work. 
Conditions vary so much that it is impossible to give any rules 
by which to trim a tree. The shape of the tree, its vigor, the 
tendency of the variety, the surrounding trees, the lay of the 
land, all have to be considered. I cut back big. healthy trees to 
a mere fraction of their original size, because they were shading 
others of more valuable varieties. My theory was that it was 
better to take the chance of developing a low tree where it would 
not shade the other tree, than to cut it out entirely. I have no 
authority for this, and perhaps even additional fertilizer will not 
make up for the drain on the soil of two trees too near together. 
Writers tell you that it is better to have one symmetrical tree. 
{Continued on page 69) 
