Frminc «f Bmring Appl* ftmmf Tour pruning program will

Frminc «f Bmring Appl* ftmmf

Tour pruning program will 1iata the moat marked effect upon the quality of fruit that you raise this earning year. High color and the eye appeal to Mrs. Consumer, is dependent upon proper pruning for sunlight. A thorough and complete job of spraying in insect and disease control is only possible when adequate pruning is done. In pruning, the branch arrangement should be such that each fruit spur is allowed partial exposure to sunlight. You will find that the downward growing parts of each branch are more poorly located from the' standpoint of sunlight, bearing poorly colored and smaller sized apples than the outward and upward growing parts. A fruit spur will bear a good apple now apd then over a period of about eight or ten years. When it has outlived its usefulness, the branch Usually becomes overtopped by younger branches with younger spurs. In pruning, we therefore remove many of the older branches entirely instead of bothering with individual spur removal.

In spite of improvements in spray materials, thorough coverage of all twigs and branches, both high and low, is essential. How many of those hard-to-spray places can you eliminate in pruning without reducing your crop?

Where mechanical arrange-, ments are employed for directing the spray to the trees as in the case of spray masts, booms and in the use of concentrate sprays, the openings to the inside of the tree must be provided by proper pruning. Where man-operated guns or brooms are used, of course the sprayer can pick out openings in the-tree and take advantage of them in getting a thorough coverage. .

When we prune a tree, we should have in mind more effective spraying, branch spacing, and the retention of those parts of the tree which are most capable of bearing high-grade fruit.