THE PRACTICE OF THINNING FRUIT 127 



done, the spacing of the fruits on the twigs and branches must be 

 provided for. This was done in early days by beating the tree with 

 a pole, and some still maintain that they can use the pole to advan- 

 tage. The almost universal practice, however, is to use the hand in 

 plucking or pushing off the small fruit. This is done very quickly 

 by experienced workmen. If the trees are low, as they should be, 

 most of the work can be done from the ground. It is best to work 

 in vertical spaces and take all that can be reached from top to 

 bottom without changing position ; then move a step or two and 

 take another vertical strip, and so on. In thinning above reach 

 from the ground ordinary fruit-picking ladders are used. Some 

 growers mount a platform above a wagon-bed, working around the 

 tree, and assurance is given that a man will thin off as much fruit 

 from such a platform as two can from ladders. 



The distance which should be left between specimens depends 

 upon conditions. It is as unsatisfactory to thin by rule of inches as 

 it is to prune by such a rule. The space to each fruit depends upon 

 the kind, the age, vigor and strength of the tree, the size and thrift 

 of the lateral or spur, which carries the fruit, the moisture supply, 

 the richness of the soil, etc. It also depends upon what use is to be 

 made of the fruit, because it is possible to have some fruit which is 

 too large for certain demands, though this objection does not often 

 arise. The strength of the shoot is perhaps the most easily appreci- 

 able 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 diameter 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. Calculate 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. 



