THINNING OF FRUITS. 



By Marshall P. Wilder, President American Pomological Society. 



One of the most important lessons which experience has taught us 

 is the necessity of thinning our crops of fruit ; and no operation, in the 

 whole round of fruit culture, has been so much neglected. It is not 

 strange that the young cultivator, delighted with a fine show of large 

 pears on a young tree, or an abundant crop of grapes on a young vine, 

 should, in the pride of his heart, — and not knowing the impossibility of 

 the tree or vine bringing them all to maturity without a tax on its vital 

 powers of which the effect may be felt for years, — permit them to remain 

 upon the plant ; for even the most skilful and experienced cultivators 

 have just begun to realize the importance, when fruit is grown on a 

 large scale, of properly thinning the crop. It is true that the labor is 

 great, but so is the profit ; and oftentimes it happens that the labor of 

 thinning a crop makes all the difference between absolute unsalableness 

 and a high price in the market. Not unfrequently a pear tree will set 

 so much fruit that it cannot bring any part of it to a size which will 

 render it salable in a crowded market, when if one half, or even a 



VOL. VII. 13 (153) 



