New York Agricultuk.^l Experiment Station. 



381 



Second Method. Six Baldwin and six Rhode Island Greening 

 trees were selected for this experiment. Three of each kind were 

 thinned, the others were not. All inferior fruit was taken out 

 and the rest of the apples thinned to at least four inches apart. 

 The following statement shows the average yield of marketable 

 fruit ijer tree and the per cent, of it which graded No. 1 or No. 2, 

 as the case may be. 



Second Mbtiiod — Averagk Yield Pek Thee. 



W'lih this method Baldwin thinned gave 26 per cent, less mar- 

 ketable fruit, but 22 per cent, more of it graded No. 1 than did 

 the fruit from the unthinned Baldwin. The unthinned trees gave 

 about three times as many culls as did the thinned trees. That 

 is to say, although the unthinned trees carried over a fourth 

 more fruit they actually yielded one and one-quarter bushels less 

 No. 1 fruit per tree than did the thinned trees. With the thinned 

 Greenings even a larger proportion of the marketable fruit 

 graded No. 1, and they actually yielded two and one-third bushels 

 more No. 1 fruit than did the unthinned Greenings. These re- 

 sults are interesting because they show that the total amount of 

 marketable fruit per tree was larger where the Greenings were 

 thinned than it was where they were not thinned. The Greenings 

 were so heavily loaded with fruit the previous year that it was 

 necessary to prop the branches so that in 1896 they set only a 

 fairly good cro]) and did not need thinning nearly so much as 

 did the Baldwins, which were overburdened with fruit. The 

 conse(iuence was that the Greening fruit was very fine and espe- 

 cially so where it had been thinned. 



