Pruning Fruit Trees

PRUNING FRUIT TREES This is a very large and special subject. Methods depend upon the aims of the owners. While the trees are young they are pruned to shape and thinned to induce vigour. As fruiting age comes on they are checked by heading back terminal buds. This diverts the tree's forces from wood production to fruiting. If the best fruit is desired, thinning of twigs and especially of fruit clusters while green is practised.

Pruning is an annual practice with the best fruit growers. A fruit tree left to its own devices for years produces firewood. The severe pruning that follows this neglect produces a forest of "water sprouts" or "suckers" the next year. It takes a long time to get such a tree checked and back into bearing.

The cutting off of lower limbs to overcome the interfering of neighbouring trees in an orchard is a bad practice. It elevates

the bearing area, until ladders are necessary to reach the lowest fruit. Better take out alternate trees, or best of all, plant origin ally at the proper distances, setting short-lived fruits between.

Yearly pruning will prevent interference by training the orchard trees to a narrower habit. By the "thumb-and-finger" pruning mentioned before, a tree may be shaped to the low, round head, or sent upward into a tall, narrow one. It takes the heaviest tools to convert them into the Japanese parasol form. Such an orchard tree makes life miserable for the pickers and is a living witness of the obtuse and neglectful character of the owner.