Miscellaneous. 201 



together, so as to give a coarser forage, suitable for cattle. Pasture about 

 blooming time. For hog pasture the seed is an important factor. Sow 

 the peas in drills still farther apart and do not pasture until the peas are 

 well formed and matured. Use an ordinary seed drill to sow the peas. 

 These rules are general and should be changed to suit conditions, but will 

 be found to suit fairly well the average farmer. 



Yes, the whipporwill is about as good as any other pea. It is a good 

 grower and forms a large quantity of seed. Cowpeas should not be sown 

 until the ground and atmosphere are warm enough not to delay the 

 growth of the young plant. But they should be planted at a time when 

 there is plenty of moisture to cause sprouting at once. Plant about late 

 corn planting time. — Colman's Rural World. 



THINNING FRUITS. 



(By A. T. Henry, Madison, Wis., College of Agriculture.) 



In all our operations in the orchard we have to help and protect the 

 tree in all possible ways. Our care for the tree begins when it is first 

 planted. The trees should not set too close together, for then they 

 would become small and poorly developed. In the same way as you would 

 not set two trees close together so you should not allow two fruits to ripen. 

 A tree has just so much food out of which to grow and bear fruit. The 

 tree will try and bear seeds first, then it will send out new growth. But 

 the tree's object is to bear seeds; it does not care for the fleshy part of 

 the fruit. The seed will be developed at the expense of the fleshy part of 

 the fruit, and as it is the fleshy part we are after, we should limit the num- 

 ber of seeds so that the fleshy part of the fruit will be developed. 



I have heard people say that if you pick off some of your young fruit 

 you are taking just so many bushels away from your ripe crop, but if you 

 take two like trees and thin the fruit on one and leave the fruit unthinned 

 on the other, you will find that the thinned tree will have more and larger 

 fruit than the unthinned tree. How often in our apple orchards have we 

 seen great limbs broken off with the load of fruit nearly ripe. If most of 

 the young apples had been picked off the extreme end of the limb the fruit 

 would have been larger in size, finer in color and more evenly distributed 

 over the limb. You who have seen thinned and unthinned peach trees 

 must have noticed the great difference. The fruit on the thinned tree is of 

 larger size and the color is greatly improved. This is because in the case 

 of the thinned tree the air has had a free circulation and the sunlight has 

 had a chance to do the most good. 



