New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 317 



These results with Hubbardston are in line with those previ- 

 ously noted with Baldwin and Greening in that the practice of 

 thinning the fruit did not appear to cause any material change 

 in either the amount or the regularity of fruit production. 



5. WHICH METHOD OF THINNING GIVES BEST RESULTS? 



It will be remembered that the original plan called for a com- 

 parison of three ways of thinning the apples. In each of these 

 methods all wormy, knotty or otherwise undesirable specimens 

 were removed and all clusters thinned to one fruit. The follow- 

 ing statement shows the further requirements, if any, which dis- 

 tinguished the methods: 



First method, none. 



Second method, no two fruits left less than four inches part. 



Third method, no two fruits left less than six inches apart. 



Eventually, because some of the work which was planned failed 

 for lack of suitable crops to work with, only one variety, the 

 Baldwin, was tested sufificiently to ofTer opportunity for compar- 

 ing one method with another. The following table brings 

 together the records of Baldwin under the first and second 

 methods: 



Table XIII. — Results with First and Second Methods of Thinning 



Baldwin. 



^ The fruit was not graded because the yield was insignificant. 



The record for 1896 when there was a full crop indicates that 

 the results with the second method were better than were 



