3o8 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



through his Alexander orchard on the 28th 

 of June, we found the ground literally 

 covered with young fruit. "People," said 

 Mr. Brennan, "are calling me a fool to 

 waste my fruit like this, but I have learned 

 by experience that thinning pays." 



What portion do you take off ? 



Well, from those overloaded Alexanders, 

 fully one-half. Here is a tree from which I 

 took 1700 peaches on the 26th of June. 

 The tree could never carry that quantity to 

 perfection. Why, 100 peaches, well grown, 

 would fill a twelve quart basket, and that 

 tree was carrying enough peaches to 

 fill over 30 twelve quart baskets ! while 

 eight or ten baskets is all it could possibly 

 mature, to any size. 



OVERCROPPING 



AT'^HIS principle applies equally to all 

 J. fruits. If the tree overbears in one 

 season, it cannot recover itself in time to 

 produce a crop the year following, so that 

 apples, pears and plums all need similar 

 thinning of the fruit and similar shorten- 

 ing of the branches. "By this system 

 of shortening," said he, "I get fruit every 

 year from Spys, Kings and Baldwins, 

 because I always encourage a certain amount 

 of young wood growth, even in a season of 

 heavy bearing, and this produces fruit the 

 succeeding year." 



The following from the Journal of Horti- 

 culture, England, goes to establish Mr. 

 Brennan's method : 



"In the whole gardening practice there is 

 no greater mistake than that of overcrop- 

 ping. It is bad in every department, but 

 worst of all with fruit, for not only are the 

 trees incommoded during one season, and 

 prevented from giving good fruit, but they 

 are often seriously checked for another year, 

 a more important point even than the other. 

 The effects upon peaches and nectarines are 

 very marked. The trees are called upon to 

 droduce about twice as many stones as are 



necessary and this takes far more out of 

 them than the production of the edible part 

 or flesh. 



But the strain upon the trees is so great 

 that even the small amount of flesh upon the 

 fruit is not worth anything. It is poor in 

 flavor, and the fruits usually drop before 

 they are properly ripe. Instead then, of 

 having, say a hundred fine luscious peaches, 

 or highly flavored nectarines, upon any given 

 tree, we have, if the fruit is not properly 

 thinned, perhaps double that number, and 

 out of all, not a score of fruits that one 

 could possibly send to a nobleman's table or 

 a high class fruiterer's shop. 



Apples on small trees are often badly 

 treated in this way. With large orchard 

 trees there is a great difficulty in thinning, 

 and without a doubt, this combined with the 

 let alone principle on which the trees are 

 treated, is responsible for their often bear- 

 ing once in two years. But with small trees 

 there is no necessity for this. The fruits can 

 mostly be thinned by hand from the ground 

 or from a short pair of steps, and the in- 

 creased value of the produce is out of all 

 proportion greater than the trouble involved. 



Even small and bush fruits may with ad- 

 vantage have attention in this way. Goose- 

 berries, currants and even strawberries, 

 unless there is a good demand for cooking 

 fruit, should be well thinned. It is just 

 now that the result of not thinning is most 

 apparent, and I would ask any thinking 

 producer to have a look round the nearest 

 fruit plantation to him. In nine cases out 

 of ten he will find this season's trees over- 

 burdened with small and comparatively use- 

 less fruit, that with judicious thinning might 

 have been useful and profitable to the 

 grower. 



EARLY TOMATOES PROFITABLE 



I FIND my early tomatoes about my most 

 paying crop, said Mr. Wm. Armstrong 

 of Queenston. I have made a business of 



