382 



Report of the Horticulturist of the 



Third Method. Two Hubbardston trees were selected for the 

 third test; one was thinned, the other was not. Besides removing 

 all inferior fruit it was thinned so that the apples were at least 

 six inches apart. The marketable fruit graded as follows: 



Tjiiud Method — Yield Per Tkee. 



The thinned tree gave 25 per cent, less marketable fruit, but 

 about 17 per cent, more of it graded No. 1 than did the fruit 

 from the unthinned tree. The unthinned tree gave about three 

 times as many culls as did the thinned tree. The superior color 

 of the thinned fruit was especially noticeable in this experiment. 

 After the fruit had been picked and piled under the trees, the pile 

 of thinned fruit could be distinguished from a distance by its 

 higher color. 



In all these tests the drops were fewer and considerably better 

 where the fruit was thinned, and all grades of the fruit were 

 higher colored and clearly superior to fruit of the same grade 

 from the unthinned trees. The first grade included no apples less 

 than two and a-half inches in diameter. The proportion of apples 

 in the No. 2 grade, which measured almost two and a-half inches, 

 was a great deal larger where the fruit was thinned, so that the 

 No. 2 grade from trees which had been thinned was much super- 

 ioi' to the No. 2 grade of the unthinned trees. Mr. Wilson esti- 

 mates that the fruit from the trees which were thinned would 

 generally bring 10 per cent, to 15 per cent, more in market than 

 the same grade from the trees which were not thinned. 



The thinning and picking of the fruit where the trees were 

 thinned took about twice as much time as was required for pick- 

 ing the fruit where no thinning was done. Probabl}' less timt- 

 than this would usually be required, because the IJaldwins had a 

 very heavy crop and required a good deal of thinning, and for the 



