1 62 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



July, 1912 



in shape and having a considerably 

 longer stem. Uniformity in size arid 

 shape is an important essential of com- 

 mercial perfection. 



Third, the color is materially bettered, 

 more uniform, and comes earlier. The 

 remarkable increase in color which occurs 

 When a first picking is made from heavily 

 bearing trees of even the winter varieties 

 such as Jonathan and Wagener, fur- 

 nishes a striking confirmation of this 

 point. While color seems largely related 

 to sunshine, it is a well-known fact that 

 on a heavily loaded tree the fruit has less 

 color less evenly distributed, and more 

 slowly acquired. 



Fourth, thinning improves the quality. 

 This is especially the case when the soil 

 is deficient in moisture or plant food. 



Fifth, the fruit is freer of diseases and 

 insect pests because wormy apples, limb- 

 bruised or diseased fruit of any kind can 

 be removed at thinning time. On plums 

 and peaches in moist regions, fruits 

 thinned so that no two touch when fully 

 grown, are much freer of brown rot. 



Sixth, the removal of misshapen fruit 

 lower the percentage of low grade fruit. 



Seventh, thinning prevents premature 

 dropping. A familiar instance is that of 

 the Mcintosh Red, which is especially 

 liable to drop where two fruits are left 

 on one spur. Premature dropping is 

 quite largely due to the inability of the 

 tree to supply moisture to an excessive 

 crop. 



Eighth, the load of fruit is more even- 

 ly distributed, and this is a very impor- 

 tant feature in preventing the breaking 

 down of trees. 



Ninth, the cost of picking is reduced 

 considerably, and the labor of packing is 

 divided more evenly over the season. 

 This is an important advantage where 

 the supply of labor is deficient in picking 

 time. The costs of grading and packing 

 are also much lessened. 



Tenth, less fertility is removed from 

 the soil; a ton of apples takes out ap- 

 proximately 1.2 pounds of nitrogen, 1.6 

 pounds of potash, and .6 pounds of 

 phosphoric acid. A ton of pears removes 

 the same amount of nitrogen and about 

 twice as much of the other elements. 

 The seeds take the great bulk of these 

 amounts, the pulp of the fruit taking but 

 a small portion. As the number of seeds 

 is roughly in proportion to the number 

 of apples, and not to their size, the re- 

 moval of fruits leaves a much greater 

 supply of plant food for the balance of 

 the crop, for the growth of the tree, and 

 in the soil. 



Eleventh, the tree is less liable to win- 

 ter injury. The extensive injury suffered 

 throughout Ontario by the hard winter 

 of 1903-4 fell mainly on the trees which 

 had borne an overload the previous sea- 

 son . This is a natural result because the 

 ripening of the crop drains the vitality 

 of the tree, so leaving it in poor shape 



to withstand the winter. Trees bearing 

 moderate crops for which there is an 

 adequate supply of plant food, and an 

 adequate supply of moisture, have suffi- 

 cient vitality to ripen the crop, and to 

 ripen the fruit buds and new shoots as 

 well. 



Twelfth, one of the most important 

 results of thinning is that the trees will 

 bear a larger and more uniform crop the 

 following year. The tendency towards 

 biennial bearing is materially reduced, 

 much depending in this, however, on the 

 variety. 



For various reasons, then, thinning 

 helps materially to secure the maximum 

 duty from the tree. 



WHEN TO THIN 



As soon as the crop can be determined 

 and the supply of labor permits, thinning 

 should be commenced. Start with those 

 varieties which are most advanced. Gen- 

 erally, apples, pears, and peaches are 

 thinned when about the size of a hickory 

 nut, and the thinning should be com- 

 pleted before they are more than double 

 that size. On the various plums the 

 work should be commenced as soon as 

 possible after the dropping, familiarly 

 known as "the June drop," is over. 



Apricots, cherries, and crab apples are 

 not usually thinned by hand, because the 

 crop which they are to bear is a reason- 

 ably certain quantity, and can be con- 

 trolled to a greater extent than in the 

 larger fruits by proper pruning. The 

 Italian prune and the Peach Plum are 

 not usually thinned because normally the 

 set of fruit of these varieties is not great 

 enough to necessitate the expenditure. 



HOW TO THIN 



To set rules for thinning is even more 

 difficult than to set rules for pruning. 

 The fruit grower must determine for him- 

 self just how much crop the tree will be 

 able to carry. Much depends on the var- 

 iety, the age of the tree, its vitality, the 

 soil, cultivation, climate, and district. 

 Under equal conditions the Winesap may 

 be thinned to say five inches, where the 

 Jonathan would be thinned to six or 

 seven, and the Northern Spy to eight. 

 In climates such as that of Vancouver 

 Island, where no irrigation is available, 

 and the rainfall averages about half an 

 inch per month during the growing sea- 

 son, or one-fifth that of the average On- 

 tario district, all varieties are thinned to 

 a greater distance than in districts of 

 greater rainfall or where irrigation is 

 available. In this district it is advisable 

 to thin many crops, the whole of which 

 could be carried to advantage under other 

 conditions. Unhealthy or diseased trees 

 should not be expected to grow as great 

 a load as those in perfect health, while 

 trees making extensive growth may v-ery 

 well be allowed to carry much more than 

 average trees under the same conditions. 



By one rule which is practised to some 

 extent, the grower sizes up all the con- 



ditions and determines how many boxes 

 of fruit the tree should carry. It is a 

 small matter then to determine how many 

 fruits there should be left on the tree. 

 The results at first are likely to be con- 

 siderably off the estimate, but this is 

 very largely a matter of practice and 

 variation of seasons. 



Another rule which might be taken in 

 conjunction with the previous one, is 10 

 thin plums to about two, two and a half, 

 or three inches, peaches four to eight, 

 depending on the earliness of the variety ; 

 p)ears and apples, five to seven inches 

 apart. In thinning pears and apples, it 

 is only with early varieties that more 

 than one should be left on any fruit spur, 

 and with these early varieties part of the 

 crop may be removed in one picking, and 

 the balance later. 



With winter varieties of apples it is a 

 good rule to leave fruit only on each al- 

 ternative spur, to encourage annual bear- 

 (Concluded on page 180) 



Dynamite in the Orchard 



A. D. Harkoett Snpt. Experimental Sta., lordan Harbor 



Early in May several tests were made 

 at the Experiment Station with dynamite 

 as a means of loosening the subsoil for 

 the planting of nursery stock and for the 

 purpose of subsoiling in a mature orch- 

 ard. In our mature apple orchard, we 

 took a row of eight trees and put in 

 twenty-five charges of dynamite. They 

 were put in in quarter pound charges 

 midway between the trees about thirty 

 inches deep and a charge at each side of 

 the trees at about ten feet from it. The 

 subsoil in this orchard is quite hard. The 

 explosion loosened the soil from three to 

 three and a half feet deep and about 

 three feet in diameter. The soil could 

 be easily shovelled without blowing it 

 out of the hole. In shovelling out the 

 loosened soil, cracks could be seen, show- 

 ing that the explosion had shattered the 

 soil for a considerable distance. We 

 will note the results, if any, in the crops 

 of apples on these trees. 



We also used it to loosen the soil for 

 planting trees in eighteen holes, six 

 plum, six pear and six apple trees, using 

 the same amount of dynamite with the 

 same result in the soil. In this test the 

 soil was much heavier and harder than in 

 the apple orchard. In this test we have 

 trees from the same nursery, of the same 

 age, and from the same part of the nur- 

 sery, planted in the autumn in dug holes, 

 planted In the spring in dug holes, and 

 planted in exploded holes. I am making 

 photographs of these trees as planted, 

 and will make a record of their growth 

 by photographs as well as notes. 

 . The explosion loosens up a large hole 

 in the ground, and it is necessary to see 

 that the loosened ground is settled back 

 again before the tree is planted. It en- 

 ables one to take out the subsoil and fill 



