How to make a barren tree bear fruit

One often hears a peasant complain that his apple or pear tree has grown "taller than the forest" yet bears no fruit, or bears very little.

Such unfruitful, barren trees usually occur when they grow on very rich soil, and especially when the spot is low-lying and receives the liquid runoff from the cattle sheds. With too much nourishment, the tree puts out many shoots every year, races upward and sets no fruit buds. In this way an apple or pear tree may live some twenty years and yield no fruit.

To make such a barren tree bear, village gardeners advise "letting rot into the tree." In other words, making a sick tree out of a healthy one. They let the rot in like this: with an auger they bore several holes in the trunk right to the heart, and in time these holes decay, and from them the rot spreads through the whole tree. True, after this operation the tree, sensing its swift death, begins to bear a great deal of fruit, but in return it withers after a few years.

A better way to make a barren tree bear is as follows.

In autumn or early spring, around the tree at a distance of 1½ to 3 arshins, judging by the size of the tree (the smaller the tree, the closer, and vice versa), a trench an arshin deep is dug. All the roots encountered are cut through with an axe, taking care not to splinter them. It is better to trim the ends of the severed roots smooth with a knife. Then the dug trench is filled in again with earth.

Having lost the greater part of its roots in this way, the tree will draw less nourishment from the soil, will not grow so luxuriantly, and by the second year will set many fruit buds. And when these buds require nourishment for the growth of the fruit, by that time the severed roots will have put out many young rootlets, which will provide the tree with nourishment.