The Garden

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 484, 28 June 1890, Page 4

The Garden

[By Hortus.] Pruning Orchard Trees. The season for the annual winter or rest pruning has arrived, and a few lines to amateurs on the subject may be of some use. Everyone who may be going to apply the knife to the trees should ask themselves what object they wish to attain by the use of the pruning knife. If you want to produce a lot of wood or new growth, the best way to attain this is to prune or cut baek freely. The effect of this severe piuning back will be to leave a large number of roots with very few outlets for the food which they will collect during the incoming season. The strong rush of food or sap up the tree in the spring will cause a large number of buds, which had remained dormant, to burst forth into growth. As the summer advances thos6 buds will elaborate into wood and leaf, giving, perhaps, a rank, strong, fresh growth. This should only be produced upon old trees that have become stunted or have not made much growth for some time. This rank growth will nob likely produce much fruit for some time to come, so the pruner should take care only to try and produce it on such trees as may require to have the wood renewed, and to recollect that every cut of the knife on the upper branches of the tree is liable to produce this tendency. Frequently have I seen trees headed back, or what some called spurred back, every season, with fche result that every season’s growth resembled a fresh crop of fishing-rods with little or no fruit. Therefore it should only be old or dilapidated trees which should receive a severe pruning. Trees which are growing fast and making much wood should only be sparingly treated on the upper branches, only cutting out such branches as may be crossing others or such as may be interfering with the symmetry of the tree. Other means besides cutting branches must be resorted to. The growth of wood must be stopped to a certain extent, and the way to attain this is to get at the roots. Every root which is cut off will be so much foodproducing power lost to the tree, thus curtailing its power to make wood. _ Where this root-pruning is properly applied, the buds which would most likely have burst into leaf and wood will probably only open out into leaf. These beds, if they only open into leaf buds the first year, in the second may develop into spurs or flowers according to the treatment they receive. Where trees are making only a small quantity of hard wood every season the best that can be done is to let them pretty well alone during the winter, and prune or pinch back during the summer months, which is the best of all pruning, as by this summer pinching you will be able to keep everything within due bounds. In pruning no precise rule can be laid down, as every tree will require some different treatment according to circumstances. The end which all good pru nets try to attain is to strike a medium where a nice hardy short-pointed wood will be produced every season, pinching back in the summer so as to curtail too great an activity in growth, and on each tree watching the action of the growth every season so as to be a guide for the future. Further I would like to impress upon all who intend to prune that every root or branch that is cut off a tree will cause a certain action either in increasing or decreasing the following year’s production of wood, consequently it will also act on the future of the trees in its capabilities for the prodHction of fruit. In dealing with young trees the pruner should always try and prune so that the tree will as near as possible assume the habit that its nature best fits it for. Apples, plums, cherries, and peaches succeed beet when grown with an open centre. Most of the pears like best to be grown as pyramids, therefore when pruning young trees of the above a study ought to be made of which system suits them best, and then prune accordingly. When pruning young wood always cut back to a bud pointing in the direction which you wish the next shoot to attain. Where this is carefully followed much labour and trouble will be saved in producing branches to fill up the spaces r equired.