26 



iial bud at the end, the terminal piece will not produce fruit 

 the next year and only by picking off the terminal bud can 

 we control it. All of you know the Red Astrachan ; you 

 will find that that invariably bears every other year ; it 

 grows wood one year and then fruit the next year. 



A MEMBER: Have these apples been any certain dis- 

 tance apart to get these good results? 



A MEIMBER: Those were all thinned out to six inches 

 apart the first part of June, before the June crop came, 

 riothing nearer than six inches. 



A MEMBER: The reason I asked that was we had our 

 Wealthys six inches apart and when the apples were ripe it 

 looked as if we had not thinned them at all, and I wondered 

 whether we had thinned enough or not. The trees looked 

 as if they had too many apples on them for their own good 

 after we had thinned to six inches apart. 



THE CHAIRMAN : It has been our practise to tell the 

 men to thin all the apples off of every spur except one, leave 

 one apple on each spur. Now, perhaps, that does not seem 

 as though we would be getting apples very far apart, but I 

 think you will find they will average six inches apart on 

 most trees. We use boys about 15 years old to do most of 

 (mr thinning, and we found that if we sent them in the tree 

 and told them to thin six inches apart, they took too much 

 time wondering whether the thing was five inches or six. 

 whereas the simple rule of pulling all but one apple off a 

 spur is easy to apply and in commercial practise it works 

 out to give you apples well spaced on the tree. In thinning 

 peaclies we make it a rule to thin so that no peaches touch, 

 and that results in the peaches being much further apart 

 than you would think. I haA'e no doubt that if we had ex- 

 j»erienced help, the actual distance apart might be made the 

 crucial point. 



A MEMBER : Would it be best to thin a Baldwin and a 

 Wagener to the same distance or further apart. 



THE CHAIRMAN: I should like to turn that question 



