THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 371 



clino; wall of its own leaves and branches. We shall escape a host of orchard 

 troubles when we permit young trees to take their own way of branching out 

 near the ground. The impossibility of plowing close to orchard trees, and the 

 difiiculty of gathering the fruit off them, are the only objections of any weight 

 to the natural development which has been described. In regard to the first 

 objection, the answer is the same which was given by a literary man to the 

 remark that his study was too small to swing a cat in. " My dear sir," said he, 

 " I do not want to swing a cat in it." In like manner, we do not want to 

 plow close to fruit trees. It tears the roots, which form a network very near 

 the surface of the ground, and it exposes the trunks to injury by the team and 

 the whippletrees. 



In previous portfolios we have shown that the second objection is invalid. 

 Low tops assist in the gathering of the harvest. 



THINNING. 



A correspondent of the New York Tribune takes this view of thinning fruit 

 In answer to the assumption that inasmuch as all the apples have to be picked 

 anyhow, it will cost no more to thin out when small, and that what are left will 

 measure as much as the whole, and sell for twice or three times as much in the 

 market, he says : 



The face is, all the apples never have to be picked; they are continually 

 dropping from the time of formation from the blossom till maturity, and it is 

 our experience here that the fuller the trees set, the better and fairer the apples. 

 The point is to keep the tree so pruned that there shall be no crowding or 

 shading, and to have hogs and sheep enough in the orchards to pick up the 

 wormy apples as they drop. With peaches and probably some other kinds of 

 fruit, it pays to thin when there is over-fruiting, and there are possibly certain 

 kinds of apples, like the Red Astrachan, for example, with a tendency to cluster, 

 which maybe improved by thinning; but to assert that it costs no more to 

 thin when small than to pick at maturity is a mistake that experience would 

 have corrected, for it is a tedious process and not only expensive but requiring 

 skill and judgment. 



To this view Dr. Hoskins, an able pomological writer of Vermont, takes 

 some exception : 



The suggestion to thin apples when small I first saw made by J. J.Thomas a 

 number of years ago. I have found it absolutely necessary with most of the 

 varieties we grow here — mainly Russians and Siberian hybrids, with a few of 

 unknown ancestry, but having tlie same habits. They not only blossom full, 

 but set so full that by the time the fruit is half grown the branches begin to 

 break down. There is comparatively little dropping with these varieties. As 

 to the labor of removing, although there is more fruit, thera is of course not 

 half the work of picking after maturity, as they are removed rapidly, and no 

 care is taken in handling what are removed. All of our varieties are of the 

 same habit as the Red Astrachan, which the above correspondent admits ought 

 to be thinned. His suggestion as to sheep and swine in the orchard is good, 

 but only practicable where the trees are branched high. We find it advan- 

 tageous here to branch low, which also makes thinning easier. 



