STATE POMOLOGICAIv SOCIETY. 69 



When that tree was picked eventually, and classified exactly 

 according to the standard of apple shippers, — from two and one- 

 half inches in diameter up for the first grade, two to two and 

 one-half for the second grade, perfect apples in both cases, we 

 had on that tree seven barrels lacking about a peck of 

 first grade, one and two-thirds of second grade. The adjoining 

 tree which was not thinned and which we supposed was about 

 the same, we picked six thousand apples the day we harvested, 

 and those went a little less than four in the first, and a little 

 over four in the second. That was the result of thinning. It 

 simply changes the size. The only mistake we made was that 

 we didn't take oflf enough. Our average expense of thinning runs 

 from forty to seventy cents per tree — the ordinary apple tree 

 which you can get at reasonably. But it shows two years ago 

 and this year that it paid not less than from seventy-five cents 

 to a dollar a tree for thinning. 



Question: How late would you thin fruit? 



Prof. GuLLEY : I should say wait until your apple drop is 

 over. We have that sometime in June. It is not, however, a 

 very serious matter with us as far as the Baldwin is concerned. 

 Don't undertake it on trees that are not fitted for it. Now we 

 have a few Suttons on the ground originally brought there from 

 Sutton, Massachusetts, top grafted on Northern Spies, and if 

 there is any apple that needs thinning it is the Sutton next to 

 the Baldwin certainly. But that tree goes up like a Lombardy 

 poplar, fifteen, eighteen or twenty feet from the ground. We 

 had Greening trees that we picked this year, ten or eleven 

 barrels of apples on each, over half standing on the ground. 

 ^^'e had Baldwins that we had to use only a twelve-foot ladder 

 to pick every apple on the tree. Those you can thin. On the 

 other hand we have some Sutton trees that when the apples 

 were on and the trees down as far as they would come the 

 nearest apple to the ground was a little over two feet from the 

 top of my head — cost a dollar a barrel, pretty near, to pick 

 them. We»did thin them, but not from the money standpoint. 

 The man that grows the Sutton wants it headed down low. 



The filler system of thick planting was practiced in the first 

 of our college orchards and have now reached the point of 

 needing thinning. This orchard was so planted to try the 

 system, also to save space, but not wholly of kinds adapted to 



