TO GET SIZE IN APRICOTS 221 



Winter Pruning of Bearing Trees. The evident defect of many 

 old apricot orchards is the failure of the low-bearing wood and the 

 thicket of brush near the ends of long bare limbs. Such trees need 

 renewal of the top by vigorous winter pruning, which should prefer- 

 ably be done toward the close of the dormant season rather than 

 early in the winter as formerly. Old and unprofitable trees have 

 been reclaimed in this way. 



Winter pruning is still the regular method in some parts of the 

 State where the conditions do not favor excessive growth of the tree 

 and where summer pruning does not seem to be called for. The 

 practice is to remove half or two-thirds of the new growth and thin 

 out, by removing entirely enough new and old wood to prevent the 

 tree from becoming thick and brushy. In shortening the bearing 

 shoots it should be remembered that the larger fruits usually grow 

 nearer to the tip than to the base of the shoot. 



THINNING THE APRICOT 



All free-fruiting varieties of the apricot must be thinned to secure 

 size acceptable to purchasers. It is the experience of the oldest 

 growers that though thinning is an expensive operation, it is very 

 profitable. When half the fruit is taken off in thinning, the remain- 

 der reaches as large aggregate weight as though the whole were 

 allowed to mature, and thinned fruit is worth about twice as much 

 per pound. Even if less weight is secured, and in most cases the 

 purpose should be to get less weight, the tree is spared the exhaus- 

 tion of over-bearing and the owner escapes a year of little or no 

 fruit. A discussion of this subject is given in Chapter XII. 



Where conditions are favorable, the tree will set more fruit than 

 it can bring to full size, and for this reason thinning or spacing the 

 fruit on the twigs by hand-picking, while the fruit is about the size 

 of a pigeon's egg, is almost a universal practice among the best 

 commercial growers. This is necessary to bring the individual 

 fruits to the diameters required by canners or overland shippers and 

 which they scale in price according to size : Extras, 2^4 inches ; No. 

 1, 2 inches ; No. 2, 2y 2 inches. Fruit of less size is hard of sale unless 

 the crop happens to be very small. It has also been found that thin- 

 ning to regulate size is quite as important when the fruit is to be 

 dried by the grower as when sold as fresh fruit. 



IRRIGATION OF THE APRICOT 



Whether the apricot shall be irrigated or not is answered in the 

 chapter on irrigation. In many locations, with proper pruning, 

 thinning and cultivation, perfectly satisfactory fruit can be grown 

 with the usual rainfall. In others a single winter irrigation will 

 satisfy all the needs of the tree; in others a single irrigation just 

 after fruit picking and summer pruning will carry the tree through. 

 It is a fact, however, that as the trees advance in age some supple- 

 ment to the average rainfall is often desirable and in dry years 



