18 THE APPLE IN COLD STOKAGE. 



the refrigerator car makes late picking possible where the fruit must 

 be in transit for a considerable time in warm weather in reaching a 

 distant storage-house. 



HOW TO OBTAIN* MORE UNIFORM -VXD BETTER COLORED FRUIT. 



While it is not the purpose of this publication to discuss cultural 

 practices in the orchard, some suggestions in relation to the methods of 

 securing more mature and more highly colored fruit may not be without 

 value to the fruit grower. 



A large proportion of the poorly colored fruit from old orchards is 

 caused by dense-headed trees and close planting, which prevent the free 

 access of air and sunlight and delay the maturity of the fruit in the 

 fall. The fundamental corrective in such cases lies in judicious pruning, 

 by which means the fruit ma} T be exposed to the sunlight. 



In other cases the poor color may be due to a combination of heavy 

 soil, tillage, frequent turning in of nitrogenous cover-crops, spraying, 

 and neglect in pruning. These conditions stimulate the trees to active 

 growth, the foliage increases in health, size, and quantity, and. as the 

 water-holding capacity of the soil is enlarged by the incorporation of 

 the cover-crops and is retained by the tillage, the trees grow late in the 

 fall and the fruit does not properly color before the picking season 

 arrives. It is often possible to overcome the difficulty by severely 

 pruning the top to let in more air and ligbt. If this treatment does 

 not prove efficient, the cover-crops may lie withheld, when the fruit 

 will usually mature earlier in the fall, unless the season is wet. As 

 an additional treatment where necessary, the growth of the orchard 

 may be still further checked by seeding it down until the desired con- 

 dition is attained. 



It is not possible to secure a uniform degree of maturity and size 

 when all the apples on a tree are picked atone time, as fruit in different 

 stages of growth is mixed together on the same tree. The apples 

 differ in size and maturity in relation to their position, the upper 

 outer branches producing the large, highly colored and early ripening 

 fruit, while the apples on the side branches and the shaded interior 

 branches ripen later. Greater uniformity in these respects is 

 approached by proper pruning and by other cultural methods, but the 

 greatest uniformity can be attained when, like the peach or the pear. 

 the apple tree is picked over several times, taking the fruit in each 

 picking that approaches the desired standard of size and maturity. 



Summer apples, like the Yellow Transparent, Astrachan, and Wil- 

 liams, are usually picked in this manner, and fall varieties, like 

 Twenty Ounce, Oldenburg, and Wealthy, are sometimes treated simi- 

 larly. In recent years ;t few growers of winter apples have adopted 

 the plan for the late varieties, with the result that the size, color, and 

 ripeness of a larger proportion of the fruit are more uniform. This 



