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Show REJUVENATE AN OLD ORCHARD Increase In Size and Color of Fruit Is Very Largely Due to Judicious Use of Prune Saw. (By S. VAN SMITH. Colorado Agricultural Agricul-tural College.) Our attention is being called every day to the example of some farmer with an idea, who takes a pruning saw and goes into an old and unprofitable unprofit-able orchard and makes it pay attractive attrac-tive dividends. Proper cultivation and spraying are important factors in such a rejuvenation, but the increase in size and color of fruit is very largely large-ly due to judicious pruning. In old orchards which have, been neglected the thing most noticeable is the fact that the tree tops contain too much wood; too many limbs. Many of these are large limbs which, should have been cut out years ago whev. they were small and the shock to the tree would not have been so great, to say nothing of the saving of plant food used in the production o v & V t' v -v t..v" it, &. , - - Irrigited Orchard Near Montrose, Col. this superfluous wood. One of the most vluable qualities of market fruit is good, attractive color. It takes light and plenty of it to make good color and the tree top with too many branches will keep out the sunlight and, consequently, will not produce well-colored fruit. In market fruit, size as well as color col-or is important. The tree that tries to produce too many apples will be unable to bring them to a good size. Thinning the fruit will aid very materially ma-terially in increasing the size,- but a good deal of work in thinning can bo saved by taking out some of the extra wood this winter. |