356 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc- 



and sorted and put in the bushel boxes, not packed, understand, 

 simply put in the boxes, 35 cents a bushel and I sold my apples 

 the same way, no sorting, right off the tree, for 70 cents a bushel; 

 In other words, apples were selling for |1.05 a barrel and 1 got 

 $2.10 a barrel for my apples in the same condition. There was a 

 profit of $1.05 made entirely on those twenty-nine cents because the 

 picking and the packing and the sorting and everything else on 

 good apples does not cost a cent more than on poor apples; in fact 

 the picking and packing of poor apples costs more than the picking 

 and packing of good apples. Now can't you see that? Most of us 

 think it costs too much to thin, we cannot afford to put on enough 

 fertilizer, we cannot afford to spray as thoroughly as we should, or 

 we cannot afford to cultivate as often as we should, but you can see 

 at once that the labor cost is very low and if, on the twenty-nine 

 cents I was able to make $1.05. I think it was pretty 

 good profit and I believe we ought to do every one of those operations 

 just right, we ought to give that tree just as much fertilizer as it 

 should have; we should spend just as much in pruning as necessary; 

 we should spray it just as well as we possibly can; pay no at- 

 tention to the cost — except that I try to do economical work — and 

 then last of all I believe we should thin all of the fruit. 



I am just going to waste a few minutes and take up the thinning 

 proposition, because it is an operation that must be done now within 

 two to four weeks, depending upon whether you are going to thin 

 plums, peaches or apples. It is the one operationi have found in the 

 State of Pennsylvania has been neglected more than any other opera- 

 tion. Most people have an idea that it is all right; but they are 

 from Missouri and you have got to show them, and the only way 

 they will find out is for you to go into their orchards and show 

 them by pruning one or two trees. I don't believe you can ever get 

 a man to thin his old orchard the first year. First of all, you want 

 to begin at the right time and that is when the apples are about 

 the size of a quarter of a dollar, as soon as you can handle them 

 nicely. Peaches we thin just after the June drop. I don't want 

 to pull off those apples with my fingers because I will take off a 

 great many of the fruit stems and injure next year's crop, and if 

 I have a cluster of four, I will injure the fourth so it will drop 

 also. First, take a small shears and clip the stems; secondly, take 

 the poor ones, then the small ones and then take the good ones 

 until they stand six or eight inches apart and do that over the 

 entire tree. 



That is where you are going to have trouble. A fruit grower 

 never gets it in his head that one apple four inches in diameter 

 will weigh as much and make as much as eight apples two inches 

 in diameter; I repeat that one apple four inches in diameter will 

 weigh as much and make as much as eight apples -two inches in 

 diameter. Where you have a limb growing eight apples ordinarily, 

 two inches in diameter, you might as well have a limb with one apple 

 on it four inches in diameter; it is not only worth more, but it is 

 not nearly as hard on the tree, because we all know it is the develop- 

 ment of the seed and not the flesh that drains upon the vitality 

 of the tree. The flesh of an apple does not drain the vitality of 

 the tree; it is the seed and that is the reason why, <vhen we leave 

 all these apples upon the tree we have so many more seeds and 



