No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 559 



Then, we have the question of proper thinning. We can add 

 greatly to the production of finer fruit by thinning at the right 

 time. This can be done by a certain amount of pruning at the proper 

 time. I have a friend who grows only one quarter acre of plum 

 trees, but he thins them, and gets more from his (juarter acre 

 than the average man gets from his whole acre; he gets at least 

 fifty per cent, more fruit from his trees than his neighbors do, and 

 it is of much greater size and beauty. 1 know a man who has half 

 an acre of strawberries, which are regularly thinned, and makes 

 money by the thinning. We will all get to these things by and 

 by, and make money by so doing. The orchardist who grows apples 

 and plums and pears and .peaches and does not thin is making just 

 as much of a mistake as the man who does not till his land every 

 year. Thinning has as much to do with fine fruit as spraying has. 

 That is why I rejoiced when I heard your chairman of the General 

 Fruit Committee report eight or ten of his correspondents advocate 

 thinning their apples. I have heard men say, "It costs too much;" 

 it does cost something, but you are simply advancing the money, 

 and will get it all back in the higher prices you can get for your 

 improved fruit. Beginning early in the summer, the same as with 

 your spraying, thin out your apples and peaches, and the result will 

 surprise you. In time, this will be the general practice, but we 

 must educate the orchardist up to it. It is like the man who saw 

 in the paper an advertisement to send a dollar and learn how to 

 cure his horse from slobbering. He sent the dollar, and got back 

 the advice, "Teach him to spit." This is education of a kind at least. 

 The fruit grower must be educated up to his fruit; he is slobber- 

 ing all over the market with fruit that is not up to the standard 

 of what it should be because he does not do the things he must do, 

 and one of these is to thin his fruit. He thins for good peaches 

 now, and in 10 years from now he will be thinning his other fruit, 

 or be beaten in the market by those who do. Those of you who 

 thin 3'our apples, raise your hands (two hands raised). Perhaps next 

 year there will be at least three. Now then, how many of you thin 

 your peaches? Raise your hands. Ah! that's better; I see quite 

 a number of hands up. You have been more used to thinning 

 peaches, but this idea of thinning apples is a comparatively new 

 one. Now, another question. We pick our tomatoes as they get 

 ripe; how many of you pick your apples the same way? Our 

 peaches are picked as they ripen, but how about our apples? How 

 many of you pick your apples at two or more picks when they get 

 ripe, and how many of you pick your apples when they are matured? 

 Raise your hands. I see five hands up. How many times do you 

 pick them? Three — four — five — sometimes half a dozen times. 

 That's good. I have seen in Western New York the wonderful apple 

 orchards you have all heard about, but they don't pick the Baldwin's 

 until one-fourth or more of them are on the ground. And then 

 they pick the matured ones and the immature ones all at once. 



Now, as to apple packing. In New York yesterday I heard a 

 consumer ask the dealer whether the apples in a certain barrel were 

 the same all the way through; on the top they looked fine. The 

 dealer declared he would guarantee nothing except what was on 

 the top; he said, "I don't know whether they are good apples, bad 



