20 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



have let them staj- ou the trees late so they ripen up in good shape and 

 they are good eating. 



A Member : They are one of the best pears for canning also. 



A Member: What do you do with the apples that are thinned out? 



Mr. Case: At the time we thin the apples are not good for anything. 

 We are in an evaporating section, and when we were first thinning these 

 out we waited until the last of August or 1st of September to do this 

 in, and then would .run them through the dryer. My records show at 

 that time that the first year I did that my accounts show I was |250 

 winner, after taking out my expense of thinning and gathering and 

 running through the dryer I got |250 more than it cost me, but I was 

 convinced that I had done nothing to the balance of the fruit. 



A Member: In your thinning do you figure that you shorten your 

 crop for that year? 



Mr. Case: No sir. 



A Member: You get practically the same crop you would have had 

 anyway ? 



Mr. Case: Yes I do, but vou have to stick right to it vear after vear. 



A Member: If necessary, you are willing to sacrifice some of the 

 crop ? 



Mr. Case: Y'^ou don't have to. You will have just that many bushels. 

 You won't have so many for drying and canning but more bushels. 



A Member: My exj^erience is. if you don't sacrifice they won't come 

 back another year. Won't you get a lot better crop the second year if 

 you sacrifice the first year? 



Mr. Case: I think that some of them do. I never done it. 



Mr. Munson : Don't you take into consideration the fact that when 

 you get apples the off year 3'ou get a better price for them? 



Mr. Case : Sometimes, but the price is governed by the amount of 

 apples all over the United States, and it has gotten so the price on the 

 even year is not much lower. 



Mr. Bassett: Are all orchards alike on the odd and even year? 



Mr. Case : No, orchards are different. Now, we are thoroughly con- 

 vinced of another thing, and I want you to try it out. During all these 

 years if we have a lot of wet during the blooming period and our bloom 

 don't set, they say it is too wet — the pollen has not been distributed. I 

 don't believe that. Every blossom has the fine pistil in the centers: 

 you have the stamen standing right around it. The blossom leaves are 

 outside of them, and a nice breeze will blow that over there and you 

 have ten davs to do it — not ten davs for one blossom, but ten davs from 

 the time there are blossoms on the tree to be fertilized, and if you get 

 one blossom in twenty you have a crop of fruit. The trouble caused by 

 the wet is the fungus. W. W. Whitsell, our New York man, found 

 winter fungus was not on the trees but on the leaves on the ground 

 and all they needed was a warm wind, when they would burst with 

 sufficient power to shoot the spores into the air, and the first infection 

 was on the blossom leaves and stems, and what we laid to lack of 

 fertilization was this fungus, so we should get our spraying on before the 

 bud opened. 



Q. Is summer pruning of young trees desirable in this state? 



Mr. Wilken : I think in cases where trees are a little slow in coming 

 into bearing summer pruning right after the terminal bud has formed, 

 late in June or July, might be a good thing, but under ordinary cir- 



