THIN AND SHELTER FRUITS. 277 



THINNING OF FRUIT. 



This is another lesson which we have learned, and the neces- 

 sity of which we have often endeavored to impress upon culti- 

 vators, and which every successive season teaches with stronger 

 emphasis. It is absolutely necessary for all who send fruit to 

 market to send large fruit, and the markets are constantly and 

 progressively requiring large and fine fruit. Even the Seckel 

 pear, which once commanded in Boston market the highest 

 price, will not now, unless of extra size, sell for any more 

 than, if as much as, common varieties of larger size. A 

 medium-sized fruit, or even one of smaller size, may be more 

 economical for use, but until some decided change in the 

 preferences of the majority of purchasers shall take place, large 

 fruit will sell better than small. To produce this, the fruit 

 must not only have good cultivation, but must be thinned. We 

 may lay it down as a certain rule, as has been stated, that ex- 

 cessive production is always at the expense of both quantity and 

 quality, if not in the same season then in succeeding ones ; for 

 when branch is contending with branch, leaf with leaf, and fruit 

 with fruit, for its supply of light and food, it would be indeed 

 an anomaly in nature if this should not result in permanent 

 injury to the trees as well as to the annual crop. 



SHELTER. 



The necessity of shelter was not as soon perceived as some 

 of the other lessons which we have named ; yet, with perhaps 

 the exception of a few favored spots, its importance is year by 

 year becoming more generally appreciated. The removal of 

 forests diminishes the quantity of rain, increases the evapora- 

 tion of moisture, reduces the temperature, and subjects our 

 fruits to greater vicissitudes, so that the peach and many of our 

 finest pears do not succeed as well as formerly, except in gar- 

 dens or sheltered places. The importance of shelter was well 

 understood as long ago as the time of Quintinye, the celebrated 

 gardener of Louis XIV., who, in his work on gardening, gives 

 full directions for planting trees for shelter.* This was in a 

 country long settled and denuded of its forests ; and though our 

 ancestors, planting fruit trees in a virgin soil, thickly covered 

 with wood, failed to perceive its necessity, we, in our older 



