FARMEES- INSTITUTES. 117 



run the gauntlet of frosts, blights, mildews, hailstorms, cold snaps, and an iii- 

 ni^merable array of insect-destroyers that beset them on every side, and have 

 enough still remaining for an over-crop. So are these rich bounties of nature 

 assured to us most perfectly. All this is so wisely arranged that it does not pre- 

 clude the necessity of co-operation on our part ; that it does not make us mere 

 idle participants in the-e bounties. "The primal curse softened to a blessing" 

 has its application here in the essential labor of thinning the fruit. A judicious 

 pruning of trees has the effect to thin the fruit very considerably. For various 

 theories on the pruning rpiestion reference may be Imd to the Michigan Pomo- 

 logical Report foi; 1874. But after all there remains usually a large excess of 

 fruit that must be removed by other means. The first inquiry would be, is it 

 necessary or profitable to thin fruit? Mr. George Parmelee, ex-j)resident of the 

 State Pomological Society, when he lived on his fruit place near St. Josej)h, 

 once told me tliat he and one of his careless neighbors sent to the Chicago 

 market each a lot of the same variety of peaches grown from the same stock of 

 trees, with mainly the difference that his (Pannelee's) had been thoroughly 

 thinned ; that his peaches brought twenty shillings per basket, and his neigh- 

 bors, on the same day, in the same market, brought ten shillings per basket. 

 This instance is given to illustrate the general exiierience of those Avho practice 

 thinning. Now, suppose it costs five cents per basket to thin, which would be 

 an outside figure, the increased size and better quality of the fruit would alone 

 be sufficient compensation, to say nothing of the effect upon the health and 

 longevity of the trees, thu-; released of their over-burden ; or of the greater 

 certainty of a full annual crop thereby secured. A percentage of this will per- 

 haps be saved in the reduced cost of picking and marketing, where half the 

 Tuimber will give the some bulk ; i)i-ovided too much time be not lost, so to 

 speak, in admiration of the luscious specimens of fruit that, under this treat- 

 ment, will crown the labors of the year. The time and manner of thinning 

 are important. The time for thinning peaches is immediately after the season 

 of curcnlio catching by the Ransom process, while the peaches are yet small, so 

 as to have advantage of as much of the season of growth as possible ; for the 

 lake shore in this latitude usiTallv from the tenth to the twentieth of June. I 

 have had little experience with other fruits, but may safely say, in reference to 

 apples, thinning should be done while the codling moth-worm is still in the 

 young fruit ; wlicn, l)y selecting the wormy ones, and destroying them with 

 their inhabitants, we would accomplish a not less desirable end in the death of 

 this most annoying and unmitigated pest. Most apples will be improved by 

 thinning, especially v.'here they grow in clusters. Pears may be thinned early 

 and quite expeditiously by leaving but one on each spur, which, where proper 

 pruning has been observed, will leave them thin enougli. But we must recur to 

 the peach, which has been a special study with us, and we do not feel quite 

 authorized to speak of other fruits. In determining the time of thinning, 

 present judgment must be used in view of all the circumstances — as the quan- 

 tity of work to be done, help available to do it, and the advancement of the 

 season. Having made all necessary observations and having the time appoint- 

 ed, at this point comes up the question : in what manner shall the work be 

 done? Since tlie first fruit was unlawfully abstracted from the forbidden tree, 

 the first natural impulse of our humanity is to shie a club into the tree, and so 

 bring down the object of our desires. The not less heathenish practice of 

 shaking the tree, is about as likely as not to bring down those peaches we desire 

 most to leave. As in harvesting, so in thinning, careful hand-picking, with an 



