No. 7. DEfARTMENt OF AGRICULTURE. 487 



that way the trees will break down. The best way is not to pull 

 on the apple straight down, and then you will not pull off the whole 

 bunch. The only way to do it effectively is to take both hands. 

 Lots of people take hold of it and give it a jerk, and pull the next 

 year's fruit bud off with it. An apple to be picked to keep good 

 should have the stem left on. Now it doesn't cost very much to thin 

 a fair sized tree, and I am satisfied the apples will be a great deal 

 better for it, and it will leave the tree in a much better condition to 

 bear the next year. That may seem a little strange, but there are 

 lots of people who don't do this. They let their trees over-bear one 

 year and the next year they have to recuperate because they worked 

 too hard the year before. You want to thin your apples a good dis 

 tance apart. 



CHESTER TYSON: How far? 



MR. COX: It depends on the variety. I don't know how far, 

 but I believe they ought to be thinned down to one at a place, and 

 if that isn't enough have them so that they will not touch one 

 another. 



CHESTER TYSON: Do you have any varieties that grow to- 

 gether? 



MR. COX: Yes, a great many varieties of that kind, Rome 

 Beauty grow two or three in a bunch. You can throw them down 

 cheaper than you can carry them down. If you pick them you have 

 all those culls to pick out. I believe you will save in labor right 

 there, and will have a good deal more pride in your work. We make 

 our own barrels on the farm and have them on hand when the crop 

 is ripe. I believe every grower, if he don't make his own barrels on 

 the farm, should have the barrels made early in the season, so that 

 extra money for those packages when he must have them. I be- 

 lieve a person ought to have all the packages that he thinks he is 

 liable to use at all, so that if you should have a hundred or two 

 barrels of fruit more than expected you won't have to lose time 

 getting more barrels. We have been making two pickings in our 

 orchard for many years. That may seem strange to some people, 

 but I think it is the correct way, especially with summer apples. I 

 wouldn't think of gathering a crop without picking two or three 

 times. Those apples don't ripen at the same time. An apple will 

 grow as long as it hangs on the tree as a general thing, and while 

 it is growing it will take on a better color. People pay for color 

 when they go to buy an apple. The leaves generally fall after we 

 have a frost. I don't think the apples quit growing until the wood 

 ripens or the stems loosen in the apples. Some people used to think 

 that is was the hot sun that made the color on the fruit. You cannot 

 have good color on your fruit if you have hot days and hot nights. 

 About the middle of August we happened to have an awfully hot 

 dry spell, and consequently we did not get the color on the apples 

 that Ave usually have just because it was so dry. I don't know 

 whether it was the same over here. It was so dry that I can say 

 there is not a single green field of wheat in Southern Ohio. That 

 may seem strange to you, but it is a fact. I never saw wheat show- 

 ing green at all until I crossed the Potomac River. We had a few 

 little showers every month but it did hardly any good at all. I be- 

 lieve it was two years ago we had fifty-seven inches of rain. While 

 the usual rainfall is about three and a half inches per month, we 



