9 • 



does, think tliat because there is no fruit, he need not spray. It is 

 even more important to keep the digestiv^e agents, the leaves, in 

 good working order, than it is to protect the fruit, for unless these 

 perform their function of manufacturing starch, the prospects of a 

 crop of fruit the following season are but slight. Therefore, spray 

 to save the fruit crop of this year and to insure that of the year to 

 come. 



III. Thinning. 



16. A large nuniber of apples or pears are oftenprodticed at the 

 expense of size and quality. — A fruit grower writes, " My trees 

 hung full of apples but they were small." Another says, "As my 

 peach trees grow older the peaches become smaller each year." 

 The size of the fruit is an expression of the vigor and health of the 

 tree. A bushel of apples may contain from one hundred to two 

 hundred specimens. A tree begins growth in the spring with a 

 more or less Hxed amount of energy and is influenced one way or 

 tlie other, strengthened or weakened, by the soil and weather. If 

 live hundred apples represents the maximum crop which a tree can 

 mature under favorable circnmstances, is it not reasonable to sup- 

 pose that if one-third of these apples are removed the remainder 

 will receive that much more food and increase in size accordingly ? 

 This has been proved by actual experiment. 



The next* consideration is a financial one. The fine product 

 always sells best. The second and third rate article cannot be han- 

 dled with profit. Peaches, plums and pears are now systematically 

 thinned hy our best fruit-growers, and the labor is more than paid 

 for by the results secured. Sooner or later the fruit must be 

 picked ; it really costs no more to pick part of it in June than in 



September. 



411 



