METHODS OF THINNING FRUITS 127 



demands, though this objection does not often arise. The strength of 

 the shoot is perhaps the most easily appreciable factor. With peaches, 

 for instance, a shortened lateral one-eighth of an inch in diameter 

 should only carry one peach, while one one-quarter of an inch in diam- 

 eter might mature four good large fruits. It would evidently be 

 wrong to work for an arbitrary inch-distance on all sorts of shoots, and 

 it will be seen to be just as irrational if it be applied without regard to 

 the other conditions of the tree. If, however, a rule must be had, let 

 it be this, that the distance between the fruit shall be two and one-half 

 times the diameter desired in the fruit. This would fix an arbitrary 

 distance, then of four to six inches for apricots and six to eight inches 

 for peaches with other fruits according to their respective sizes, and 

 the late varieties with greater distance than early. 



Any such standard, however, considers only the size of the fruit, 

 not the strength of the tree, and therefore stops short of one of the 

 important ends of thinning, to conserve the strength of the tree for next 

 season's fruiting. Fruits might be thus spaced and still the tree be 

 overladen, because it may be carrying too many bearing shoots. Cal- 

 culate the burden of the tree in this way, for instance : Peaches which 

 weigh three to the pound are of fair marketable size; sixty such 

 peaches will fill an ordinary peach box of twenty pounds ; ten to twelve 

 such boxes is fruit enough for a good bearing tree six to ten years of 

 age. Now count the little peaches you have left on one main branch 

 and its laterals, which ought to be about one-tenth of the tree, and thin 

 down to about sixty. By doing a few trees in this way and thinking 

 of the relation of the bearing wood to the fruit, one will soon get 

 a conception of the proper degree of thinning, and proceed to realize 

 it as rapidly as the fingers can fly along the branch. 



It is seldom desirable to divide doubles in peaches ; pull both off or 

 leave both on, as they may be needed or not to make the load of the 

 tree. Clusters of apples or pears should often be reduced to singles, 

 except where size is apt to be too great. 



All kinds of fruit are clearly subject to increase of size by thinning, 

 but it is with only the larger fruits that the practice prevails at present. 

 The dividing line seems to lie upon the prune. With this fruit thinning 

 is only done by pruning the tree for the reduction of the number of 

 bearing branches, while with some shipping plums hand thinning is 

 practiced. Growers are still striving for a prune naturally of larger 

 size rather than to have recourse to thinning. 



The practice of thinning partially at first, trusting to further 

 removal of fruit later if too much of it survives the natural drop and 

 various accidents, is followed by some growers, but the rule is to finish 

 at one operation. 



The size of oranges on over-burdened trees can be increased by 

 thinning, just as other fruits are enlarged, but it is not systematically 

 undertaken, because it is not so necessary and because it is perhaps 

 easier to get oranges too large and to be discounted for over-large and 

 coarse fruit. Removing part of the fruit from young trees is often 

 done for the good of the tree, not for the good of the fruit. 



