The Home Fruit-garden 361 



for the other fruits, used at the rate of about J to f ton per 

 acre, but varying them somewhat according to natural con- 

 dition of the soil. If sufficient growth does not result, 

 more fertilizer should be used, and if the growth is too great 

 reduce the amount of nitrate. 



Thinning the Fruit. — The apple, like most of our fruit- 

 trees, has the habit of producing fruit only on alternate 

 years, which is the result of exhaustion of the tree by its 

 large crop of fruit, and it takes one year at least for it to 

 regain sufficient vigor to produce another crop. To over- 

 come this condition, the trees should be allowed to bear only 

 a moderate crop and the land be kept in a condition to 

 produce a moderately vigorous growth of the tree. It is 

 the practice of many of the most successful fruit-growers 

 to thin their apple as well as other fruit-crops so that the 

 trees will not be weakened by overbearing. This thinning 

 is done when the fruit is about one-third grown, removing 

 all the wormy and imperfect fruit, and, in some cases, one- 

 half or two-thirds of all on the tree. The result of this is 

 that there will be Httle poor fruit to pick and sort; what 

 remains vnll be larger and of better quahty, while the 

 quantity will probably be as great as if all had been allowed 

 to remain on the tree, and the tree ^\'ill not be exhausted, for 

 it is the production of the numerous seeds in the fruit that 

 weakens the tree more than the production of the pulp or 

 soft part of the fruit. 



Insects and Fungous Pests. — The limits of this chapter 

 ^\l\\ not warrant a description of the many insects and fun- 

 gous pests that are injurious to the apple or the other 

 fruits, and the reader is referred to such books as Saunders' 

 "Insects Injurious to Fruits" and ''The Spraying of Crops" 

 by Lodeman, etc., and to the directions for the use of insecti- 

 cides and fungicides on pages 320-327. On these subjects 

 the bulletins of the experiment stations give the best and 



