AUTUMN PRUNING.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 324, 25 May 1878, Page 4

AUTUMN PRUNING.

Ykaii by year the importance of early pruning becomes more and more admitted, and the benefits resulting therefrom more acknowledged when the work is skilfully done; but still in largo establishments there is always sonic pruning loft later than it should be, and in many smaller places it is not even thought ’ about till long after ifc.ought to be finished. Not a tree in the garden or orchard ought to bo touched’with* the knife a day later than June. The most perfect fruit is produced on plants which arc allowed to increase in size annually to a reasonable extent. The 'object is to produce a fair quantity of fruit of the best possible quality. -Where quantity is ■ considered standard trees will produce in a given number of years the most when ' allowed to go without :1113V pruning whatever. And there are varieties in each class of fruits which from their habits of bearing; only moderate crops "would also produce fruit of good quality if. untouched with the knife.-; but as a rule the best quality and the most regular cropping is to be found in well-managed - gardens or orchards attached to them when the trees are moderately primed—moderately, for harm is sometimes done by hard pruning,' hence somp will.say do not prune at all ; but if sheep-shearing were clone- by unskilful men who took some of the skin as well as the wool from the sheep’s back, it would not prove conclusively that it was a -wrong practice to shear sheep. Nothing is more common than to hear that an orchard which is left to grow its own way fruits every year. The reason is that the trees generally fruit too freely when they do bear, and exhaust thornselves, while at the same time the fruit produced is comparatively small and only of medium, quality. In well-managed gardens, on the other hand, wo do not

recognise such an event as a fruiiful season, or an nnfrnitfui one—l mean such results do not recur regularly ; of course, if we have the '.weather in November which properly belongs to July nothing short of ample 'protection' will insure, a crop of fruit. Such trees as are liable to bleed or emit gam suffer the most from late pruning. Figs,-.poaches, and plums should all be. finished so soon as there is no more chance of ripening, say by the end of May, and thinning as far as possible to admit light to the permanent branches without taking olf too pinch foliage should be commenced on all fruit trees as soon after .midsummer as the pressure of oilier work will allow'. Do not be afraid to cut into the old wood To remove naked brandies or weak unfruitful spurs. Wounds never heul so well or so quickly as when the tree is full of healthy partly matured foliage.— N.Z. Times.