2l6 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



Fig. 2317. Plums Thinned and Unthinned Compared. 



orchard trees overbear, as they did in 1896, 

 it takes three or four years for them to fully 

 recover their vitality. Indeed, if one may 

 judge from evidences, it is only this year 

 of 1902, six years after that enormous ex- 

 hausting crop, that our apple trees have 

 recovered their wonted vigor ! 



The Massachusetts Station has reported 

 on results of thinning apples, as follows : — 



A tree each of Gravenstein and Tetofsky 

 apples was thinned on July ist, and a sim- 

 ilar tree of each variety left unthinned as a 

 check. In case of the Gravenstein, the 

 yield on the thinned and unthinned trees, 

 respectively, was first quality fruit, 9 bushels 



and 2)^ bushels ; second quality fruit, i 

 bushel and 2^ bushels ; windfalls, 9^ 

 bushels and loj^ bushels. In the case of 

 Tetofsky the thinned trees gave i bushel of 

 windfalls, and the unthinned tree 3 bushels; 

 of second quality fruit, the yield was one- 

 half bushel from each tree ; and of first 

 quality fruit the thinned tree yielded 2 bush- 

 els and the unthinned tree none at all. Al- 

 lowing 60 cents per bushel for firsts and 25 

 cents per bushel for seconds, the market 

 value of the thinned Gravenstein apples was 

 over twice as mnch as that of the unthinned 

 and of the thinned Tetofsky apples eleven 

 times as much as that of the unthinned. It 



