INCREASING SIZE OF FRUITS 125 



THINNING FRUIT 



Intimately connected with the pruning of bearing trees, is the thin- 

 ning of the fruit or proper spacing of the individual fruits so that each 

 shall have space and sap to allow its attainment of satisfactory market- 

 able size. It has been fully demonstrated that no demand is profitable 

 which will be content with the undersized fruit from an overladen tree. 

 The superior price for good-sized fruit for all uses, not excluding dry- 

 ing, is unquestionable; the total weight secured may be variable as 

 between thinned and unthinned trees, but it can be accepted as an 

 indisputable fact that any increase of weight there may be upon an 

 unthinned tree will not be nearly an equivalent for the loss in value. It 

 is the conclusion of our largest and most successful growers that, large 

 as is the expenditure required for careful and systematic thinning of 

 fruit, it is the most directly profitable outlay which they have to make 

 for orchard maintenance. 



Objects in View in Fruit Thinning. But thinning fruit has 

 objects beyond the value of the visible crop which it makes profitable. 

 No overburdened tree can discharge the two-fold summer duty of every 

 cultivated fruit-bearing tree, which is to perfect this season's fruit 

 and lay a good strong foundation for next year's bearing. If the tree, 

 after fruit gathering, has not the strong, vigorous foliage to complete 

 the formation of fruit buds for the following year, there will either 

 be a lack of bloom or a show of bloom unfit to set, and the tree will 

 work for itself next year, and not for you, because this year you would 

 not work for it. In this particular, thinning fruit coincides' in purpose 

 with pruning to limit the amount of bearing wood, which has already 

 been considered. 



Other objects there are also which are related directly to the profit 

 of orcharding and should command respect from the most careless. 

 The following is an emphatic statement of the case : 



There are at least six ways in which growers are repaid for thinning 

 peaches, nectarines or apricots designed for drying: 



First: Yon can thin off half the fruit when small quicker than you could 

 pick it when large, and when mature the time required to fill a basket depends 

 mainly upon the number of peaches it holds. 



Second : It takes just as long to cut and spread on a drying tray a small peach 

 as a large one. It takes longer to cut eight peaches that will weigh a pound 

 than to cut three and pick five off when they are little. 



Third: If peaches run six to the pound the weight of pits will not vary 

 much from that of the cured fruit. If they run three to the pound, they will 

 weigh not much over half. A ton of large peaches is as likely to yield 400 

 pounds of dried as a ton of small fruit of the same variety to yield 300 pounds. 

 It means a difference of about $8.00 per ton in the value of the fresh fruit 

 to the dryer. It will cost over $1.00 per ton to thin a heavily laden peach orchard 

 in a way to make that difference. 



Fourth : Granted that you leave fruit to reach the same weight as maturity, 

 still you leave it along the body and in places on the limbs where the weight 

 has no breaking leverage and take it off the ends where it may get sun-burned 

 and is almost sure to break the tree. 



Fifth: Vitality drawn from the plant and certain elements of fertility from 

 the soil, are in proportion to the number of seeds matured. The pulp cuts 

 little figure except in aerial substances and water. 



