Most of the points regarding the management of young trees have already been mentioned, but a few others should have attention directed to them. Fall planted trees should not be cut back until spring. In the spring all newly planted trees should have their tops cut back rather severely to correspond with the injury to the roots in transplanting, thus preserving the balance between root and top. This will usually be about half to two-thirds the previous season's growth. From three to five well distributed branches should be left with which to form the top. During the first few years of their lives the young apple trees will need little or no pruning, except to shape them and remove crossing or interfering branches.
Constant cultivation at frequent intervals until midsummer should be the rule with young growing trees, with which this is even more important than with older trees. It is a good plan to plow the orchard in fall where possible, always turning the furrows toward the trees, leaving the dead furrows as drainage ditches between the rows. At Beechwood Farm we have always banked the trees with earth in the fall, using a shovel. This not only firms the soil about the tree, holding it straight and strong through the winter, but it affords good protection against rodents, especially mice. Where rabbits are prevalent it is well to place a fine mesh wire netting around the trees in addition to this.
CHAPTER IV[ToC]
PRUNING THE TREES
Pruning is not an entirely artificial operation as one might at first thought suppose. It is one of nature's most common processes. Nature accomplishes this result through the principle of competition, by starting many more trees on a given area than can possibly survive. In the same way there is a surplus of buds and branches on each individual tree. It is only by the crowding out and the perishing of many buds, branches, and trees that others are enabled to reach maturity and fulfill their purpose. This being too slow and too expensive a process for him, man accomplishes in a day with the knife and saw what nature is years in doing by crowding, shading, and competition. Proper pruning is really an improvement on nature's method.
Neither is it true, as some claim, that pruning is a devitalizing process. On the contrary it is often stimulating and may actually increase the vigor of a weak or declining tree. All practical experience teaches us that pruning is a reasonable, necessary, and advantageous process. True, it is often overdone, and improperly done. As in many other things, certain fundamental principles underlie and should govern practice. When these are known and observed, pruning becomes a more simple matter.
Heavy pruning during the dormant or winter season stimulates the growth and tends to increase the production of wood. In the same way pruning during the summer or growing season stimulates the growth and tends to induce fruitfulness, if the tree remains healthy. But this fruitfulness is apt to be at the expense of the vigor of the tree. On the other hand, the pruning of the roots of a tree tends to check the growth of wood, the same as poor feeding. As above noted heading back a tree when dormant tends to stimulate it to a more vigorous growth.