THINNING FRUIT 



Fig. 1607. — Female Moth ok thk Applb-Tkee Tkst-Caterpillar. 



The fall- web vi orm{ Hyp hantria cunea. 

 makes a tent in the fall — not in the 

 spring — which includes the leaves upon 

 which the caterpillars feed ; these latter 

 pupate in the fall and pass the winter 

 in the cocoons. The moths, which are 



white or slightly flecked [with color, 

 emerge in the spring. 



The methods of repression for these 

 insects are similar to those given for the 

 apple-tree tent-caterpillar. — Geneva Ex- 

 periment Station. 



THINNING FRUIT. 



We will next consider the thinning of 

 fruit. I wonder how many of you 

 practice the thinning of fruit on your 

 apple trees. Now, apple trees will do 

 a good deal if you do nothing for them. 

 But the man who wants good apples — 

 apples that will pay — in the future will 

 practice thinning his fruit. I should 

 take a young tree which attempted to 

 produce one hundred apples, and remove 

 at least fifty of them, leaving not more 

 than fifty to ripen. The next year, if it 

 attempted to produce two hundred, I 

 should leave one hundred or less, and 

 the next, if it had one thousand apples, 

 I should leave three or four hundred 

 only. By this method I should get 

 that tree into the habit of annual bear- 

 ing. The man who will make fruit 

 growing a profitable business will thin 



all his fruit. A peach tree'that will set 

 one thousand peaches needs to have six 

 or seven hundred thinned oflT. The 

 commercial side of fruit growing de- 

 mands thinning of nearly all your fruits. 

 You will get more bushels to the tree 

 within reasonable bounds ; the more 

 you throw away the more pounds or 

 bushels you will have left, increased 

 size more than making up loss in num- 

 ber. In thinning Japanese plums I 

 should leave the fruit four inches apart, 

 and peaches from five to six inches. If 

 you will make a practice of thinning 

 your fruit from the trees, you will usually 

 get four dollars for one. I have often 

 had it increase the crop fifty per cent, 

 and the selling prices five hundred per. 

 cent. — J. H. Hale, before Mass. Hort. 

 Society. 



223 



