PRUNING OLD TREES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 222, 12 June 1908, Page 3

PRUNING OLD TREES.

HOW TO GET FRUIT BUDS. It is often desired to know how to reduce an overgrown, lanky-limbed apple or pear treo to neat size and bearing condition. It is not a difficult matter, but it involves some sacriflee of timber. Large troo3 are Sometimes bad bearers from various causes. "' It may be due'to blights. Some pear trees , are entirely stripped of'their blossoms and embryo fruits every year by tho black spotbliglit, others are stripped of their loaves and woakonod by the leaf slug, others perhaps' are selfsterile. Each of these troubles, of course, has its proper remedy—spraying tfitlr Bordeaux mixturo for the black spot,' spraying with heleborc for the.slut* provision of other, varieties to remedy sterility. : But'the present notes will be directed to cases in which trees are of too large size, and bear but little fruit, which, being on the outskirts" of the branches, gets badly stripped by wind. Where there is no reluctance to reducing the size of the tree, it can be easily remodelled 'and made- to bear fruit all tho way down to the main stem; It is simply necessary to apply the principles described in our'article on apples and pears in Tuesday's issue. Pornaps the tree.has been ' often pruned at the ends of the' branches, or allowed to send; out cross-shoots in all directions, until a thicket of small branches at the ends completely shades the interior of the tree. This must be rectified, for there can be no-fruit where the sun does not shine. , ■ Get a saw and cut off the branches'at a point a foot or so from the main stem.- Tliis will perhaps be heart-breaking work if the owner ■is fond of his treo; but it is necessary. - . If he likes; he may confine the surgery to merely 1 'one or two branches, leaving others to be dealt with in future years/ Begin on the sunny side, and out the branches in such a 'position that they will not be shaded from the sun by tho growth of the rest of the tree. _ The cutting off must be done befoi-e spring growth begins.' New shoots will develop near the. cut. , It does ■ not matter if there are 110 buds visible. Plenty of adventitious buds will push out from the. bark lower down. The shoots that develop from these may be allowed to grow • unchecked till tho following winter,'when all must be out away, except one. This one will form the "tapering end" to the branch which had been cut back, and, with proper treatment and the pinching back of sido' shoots to 1 form fruit buds, as described in Tuesday's issue, tho branch 'can be eventually covered with' fruit. Other shoots will develop farther down' .tho main ' branch. Those should be encouraged and properly pinched back in summer to convert them into fruiting wood. The production of fruit buds, 'even down the hitherto bare mainstem, by this mode of treatment is possible. The whole, tree, however, must ba' similarly: pruned and shaped to give a pro-, per distribution of branches, an absence of cross branches and laterals, and plenty of ;sunlight into the lower parts of' tho tree. It! must <be. always remembered'that where there is no'direct sunlight thero will-be no. fruit. Sometimes, ihstead of cutting a big. branch back to bare wood, it' can be cut back to a side shoot, which can bo-adopted as its growing- point and. treated, accordingly. • The. appearance of new fruit-buds farther down tlie limb' may ''.still be looked for so'long" "as sunlight and the tapering end be secured, for- the''pruning of tlie limb back to one • slender .branch will. restrict its Mage of,. ■ the ■ next season, and the •. pent-up sap' will force its way out in new ,shoots lower, down the limb. The principle is easily grasped and easily applied., The owner's chief difficulty will be to convince himself beforehand that a small tree with a hundred or mbre fruits 'on'.it is qTutft-fafyigopd'f#s ;a_tree.,4ei,r,times,, as big. ; -ana bearing* no- more "fruit. , It is not blossoms nor timber that one wants, but .ripe fruit. And the. .nearer, thatj fruit is to 'the roots of the'tree the better it , will be,, the more easily-gathered, and safer, from.wind. , ~ i, /