Thinning the Fruit 297 



he saw packed with 90 extra fancy peaches, and another 

 crate of the same size packed with 228 small peaches of the 

 same variety. The latter crate took nearly three times as 

 long to pick, grade, and pack as the first crate. Baskets, 

 crates, hauling, and freight cost the same for each package. 

 The price received for the first was $3, while the second 

 brought less than one-half as much. The first crate gave a net 

 profit of about $2, while for the second the profit was scarcely 

 50 cents. The trees on which the first lot grew had a strong 

 set of fruit-buds for the next season's crop; the trees on 

 which the second lot grew were scarcely able to keep alive. 



The New Jersey Experiment Station^ presents the same 

 truth in another way : In one instance 70 per cent of the 

 peaches were removed from some trees in thinning; from 

 another lot 32 per cent (supposedly trees in both cases that 

 were bearing like quantities in the beginning). At harvest 

 time, 2.8 baskets of fruit to a tree, each fruit averaging 4.48 

 ounces, were gathered from the heavily thinned lot, and which 

 sold for $1 a basket, or S2.80 a tree. From the less heavily 

 thinned lot, 3.9 baskets of fruit to a tree were harvested, 

 each fruit averaging 2.8 ounces, and which sold for 45 cents 

 a basket, or S1.75|^ a tree. 



Though the lightly thinned tree produced in bulk about 

 25 percent more fruit than the heavily thinned, the individual 

 fruits were more than 50 per cent heavier and sold for more 

 than double the price received for the smaller fruit, resulting 

 at the prices given in a financial gain for the heavier thinning 

 of more than SI. 00 a tree, not taking into account the cost of 

 thinning. There was a saving in the heavy thinning because 

 there were fewer fruits to handle at packing time and fewer 

 crates were necessary to contain the fruit. 



1 An. Rept. 0£f. of Expt. Stations, 1906, p. 424. 



