New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 303 
higher prices and more careful grading have stimulated the growing 
of fruit of better quality. Commercial peach growers generally fol- 
low this practice to-day, and that it is a profitable horticultural pro- 
cedure is apparently well established. The thinning of apples, how- ° 
ever, has never become common. Whether this is due to the fact 
that an apple tree full of fruit is not benefited to the same extent 
by having the surplus fruit removed as a peach tree would be or 
whether it comes from the greater expense of the thinning of the 
larger trees is not evident. 
To test the advisability of thinning apples as a horticultural prac- 
tice an investigation? was started in 1896 and continued for four 
seasons thereafter. This work was done in a commercial orchard 
some distance from the Station grounds, the object being to approxi- 
mate the same conditions as those of the practical fruit grower. The 
trees were all mature, ranging from twenty-five to forty years in age. 
In each case where a tree was thinned another tree of the same 
variety, and as nearly like it as could be found, was taken as a check 
for comparison. At the close of the experiment the conclusions 
were as follows: No exact rule for thinning apples can be given, 
the requirements varying with age, size and season. In general, 
after all wormy and otherwise inferior specimens were removed and 
not more than one fruit from each cluster was left, additional fruit 
should be removed if the apples are less than six inches apart. Early 
thinning gave best results and the writer advises that the work be 
done within three or four weeks after the fruits set even if the June 
drop is not yet completed. No method of raking or jarring the 
fruit from the trees is recommended. 
One of the most valuable things about thinning is that the in- 
ferior specimens are removed and this discrimination can only be 
done by hand. Wherever the trees were well filled with fruit, 
thinning improved the color and size and consequent market value. 
The thinned fruit graded higher in all respects than that which 
was unthinned. There was no material change in either the amount 
or regularity of fruit production. In this respect the results were 
rather surprising as it was anticipated that preventing the tree 
from overbearing would increase the yield on the off years. 
It is stated that “the cost of thinning mature trees which are well 
loaded should not exceed fifty cents per tree and probably would 
average less than that. Although a given number of fruits can 
* Rpt. 15:378 (1896). 
