Entomological Notes. 309 



apples is, that many stems of apples are so short, that it is not easy 

 to get hold of them; but it will take a pear every time. It is 

 carried up as close to the end of the stem as possible, given a slight 

 turn, which breaks it off at that point, and the pear drops; or, if 

 you choose, the pear can, with a little care, be conveyed down into 

 your hand. The inside edges of the fork should be square, and it 

 should be tempered rather soft. My instructions to the pear 

 thinners are these: There are four classes of pears to be removed. 

 In the first place, where there are two or more growing in a clus- 

 ter, they are to take out all but one; no matter how handsome the 

 others may be, or how tempting it may be to let them remain, 

 everything is thinned out to one pear in a place. Second, every pear 

 that is deformed, that is not going to be a perfect fruit when grown, 

 is taken out. It is nonsense to keep your tree at work, undertak- 

 ing to grow imperfect fruit, that will never be worth anything. 

 Third, every pear that shows evidence of the codling moth is to be 

 removed; next, all the small, weak pears; every pear that cannot 

 keep up with its neighbors, as Kearney says, " must go." 



That is severe thinning, but that is sometimes only the begin- 

 ning. Having thinned out everything that is imperfect, everything 

 that is in the way, then the tree is to be looked at as a whole, to 

 judge if it is bearing more than it should. If it is, then the fruit 

 is to be thinned out still further. That is the most difficult thing 

 in the whole operation to do, to thin out pears that are perfect, 

 just as good as their neighbors; but they must come out, because 

 the tree has too many. There is no rule about this; it is a matter 

 of education. A man must judge from his experience how much 

 each individual tree can carry. Mr. J. J. Thomas has formulated a 

 rule, which it is perfectly safe to follow, the substance of which is 

 this: That no ordinary, medium sized pear, should grow within six 

 inches of another. That is a safe rule;, you will not lose any 

 money if you follow it. In many cases it ought to be ten inches in- 

 stead of six. 



Now what I was coming at was this: Wherever the codling 

 moth larva has been at work, those pears or apples, if left undis- 

 turbed, sooner or later drop upon the ground. They are worthless, 

 but every one that has a worm in it should be at once secured. I 

 am, therefore, in the habit of going through the orchard about twice 

 a week, and picking off all the wormy fruits before they drop; 



