REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 49 



ADDRESSES GIVEN AT THE AUBURN MEETING 



PiOW AND WHEN TO THIN APPLES. 

 G. A. Yeaton, Norway. 

 {Stenographic Report.) 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



There was a good woman who had always been doing good 

 to every person with whom she came in contact. When she 

 came to die, her husband ordered engraved on her stone, 

 "Lord, She Was Thine." There was not enough room for all 

 the letters, the engraver found, so when the stone was finished, 

 it read, "Lord, She Was Thin." I am going to talk a little 

 about thinning. I don't think that thinning is a panacea for 

 all ills, or will make a tree bear if it is naturally a sterile bear- 

 ing tree, but it does have a tendency to bring those trees into 

 natural bearing. 



In 1913, the state laws were amended so that if we were 

 going to sell, we had grades established by law. The fancy 

 grade was to be apples of one variety, well colored, and not 

 less than two and one-half inches ; No. i of one variety, well 

 colored, and not less than two and one-quarter inches. To 

 produce apples of this kind, we should take care of our trees. 

 We should do the work at the right time and in the right 

 manner to get results. There are many of us who have feit 

 that if we did a good amount of pruning in the spring that it 

 wouldn't be necessary for us to do any more, as that would 

 take care of it, but I tell you right now that it will not. If we 

 give the trees a rigid amount of pruning in the spring, it has 

 a tendency to produce an over-amount of wood growth, which 

 is at the expense of the fruit developing. 



I will give you a bit of an experience made by my class, as 

 we are simply telling our experiences. In 1908, I made an 

 experiment in a Wealthy orchard which was located just a 

 little way from home. It had quite a large lot of healthy 

 trees. We selected 20 of them for a demonstration. Ten 

 were thinned. The result was very satisfactory. We left the 

 other ten in a block. These trees were as near uniform size 



