250 The Principles of Fruit-growing 



are taken off by hand, and are then dropped to the ground, 

 where they may either be allowed to lie, or, if they are 

 infested with insects or disease, may be raked up and 

 burned. Methods of thinning apples have been discussed 

 (pages 244 to 248). It is customary to thin the fruits as 

 soon as the dangers of spring frosts and other early acci- 

 dents are past, but before they have become of sufficient 

 size to be a tax on the tree. Peaches are usually thinned 

 when they are about the size of a small hickorynut (that 

 is, about the size of the end of one's thumb), and apples 

 from that size until they are twice or sometimes even 

 thrice as large. Various devices have been suggested for 

 the thinning of fruit, but they are mostly impracticable, 

 because they do not discriminate between good and poor 

 fruit, do not leave the fruit well distributed, and are very 

 likely to break off the spurs. Some of the implements 

 figured on page 377 may be used in special cases. 



It requires more discrimination and judgment to thin 

 fruit properly than to pick it. In the thinning of peaches, 

 it is a good rule to allow none of the fruits to hang closer 

 than 4 to 6 inches of each other. This means that in years 

 of very heavy setting, fully two-thirds of all the fruits are 

 removed in June. In many parts of the country this 

 thinning is systematically done, and it has in all such 

 cases come to be regarded as an indispensable element 

 in successful fruit-growing. No reliable estimates of the 

 cost of thinning fruit can be given, because so much de- 

 pends on the form and pruning of the tree and the quantity 

 of fruit to be removed. The result is also greatly influ- 

 enced by the character of the workmen and the price paid 

 for labor. Full-grown peach trees may be thinned for 20 

 to 50 cents each. Apple trees twenty-five and thirty 

 years old have been well thinned for 40 to 90 cents each. 



