226 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



two trees are alike in growth, hence no two require the same kind and 

 amount of pruning. Upright growers should be thinned out and some of 

 the drooping branches should be removed from spreading or straggling 



growers. 



Mj-. Murray — I would leave some water sprouts on trees whose 

 branches have been bent over with heavy loads of fruit ; they will renew 

 the tree. This is especially applicable to the Winesap. 



Mr. Laughlin — I think pruning should be a preventive measure to 



keep trees in the right shape, so you will not have to remove large 



branches when the tree gets older. I would prune only the last of May 



or first of June, just as the tree is making the most rapid growth of the 



season. Wounds made at this time will soon heal over, and you will 



have long-lived trees. ^ 



•f- 



THINNING FRUIT. 



* 



Mr. Spcer — I have been studying about it and I think it will pay. 

 If any person has had any experience as to how expensive it is, let us 

 have it. 



Prof. Clark. — In the east I spent twenty-one days work thinning 

 a crop of peaches that made 800 bushels ; every peach sold, and we got 

 more bushels than if we had left them all on the trees. We got $3.50 a 

 bushel instead of $1.50. 



If plums are thinned so as not to touch, they will not rot, and the 

 fruit will be finer. It pays to thin fruit every time, and apples in the 

 bargain. 



MARKETING. 



Mr. Nelson. — I won't take back anything I said in my paper. I 

 think the apples should be packed into the barrels under the trees in the 

 orchard where they grew. Some varieties are so tender you cannot 

 move them in any other way. 



Mr. Henry — In my opinion the most important thing about market- 

 ing is honesty on the part of the man that packs the fruit. The man that 

 puts in two layers of good apples and then fills up the barrels with trash 

 is the man who breaks down the market. There ought to be an effort 

 made to compel every man to put his name upon every barrel he packs. 

 Honesty in packing fruit would double the market in the northwest. 



Mr. Murray — I think w^e ought to use clean, new, full-size, uni- 

 form, standard packages. Apples should be packed in what are called 



