Chap. XXIV.] FliUIT CULTUKE. 429 



in flavour, size, and beauty of colour that tliey puzzle system, 

 and until some of the varieties have no more likeness to the 

 aboriginal native than a Life Guardsman has to a chimpanzee. 

 Yet in one point they still inherit their marked native trait — 

 profuseness in bud and fruit. It is true that by selection the 

 fruits have become so large that the improvement to be had by 

 judicious thinning is not likely to present itself to many cul- 

 tivators ; but one trial of the system will convert the most 

 sceptical. Nature's tendency is to the production of myriads of 

 individuals, whereas in the case of our fruits we require size and 

 perfection of the individual rather than mere quantity. Let it 

 be duly considered that the total weight of finely-developed fruits 

 may equal, or nearly equal, an unthinned and half-starved crop, 

 and perhaps be worth three or four times more in money 

 value. 



Generally the practice is to leave the crop as much to nature 

 as regards thinning of the branchlets as we do that of the Ash or 

 Blackberry. One year the tree bears a great crop of fruit, and 

 the whole of its vigour is so drawn up by the many hungry 

 feeders that little remains to form fruit-spurs for the following 

 year, and such as are formed may lack vigour to set. Then 

 comes a year of efibrt in the production of wood and spurs, and 

 perhaps by the end of autumn there will be a score, or even two 

 score, fruit-buds on one fruit-spur, where one, two, or at most 

 three, would be sufficient. Now, if all be allowed to set, the 

 result will be a dense crop of poor fruit, which, if submitted in 

 the market-test, will prove of little value. But if these spurs be 

 thinned so as to concentrate the energies of the tree in fine and 

 succulent fruit, there will also rest sufficient strength in it to 

 form at the same time a medium crop of fruit-buds likely to 

 afl'ord a crop the following year, and to induce a more regularly- 

 fertile habit in the tree. By following this thinning-system we 

 may, in fact, get good and valuable crops every year ; and by the 

 other the alternate and useless profusion before alluded to. The 

 Pear requires this attention as much as the Apple when grown as 

 a standard or freely-developed tree ; but, in consequence of being 

 much more grown in a dwarf and contracted form, on espaliers, 

 walls, etc., and much pruned, the want of thinning is not so often 

 seen as in the case of the Apple. 



