300 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



tality of the tree. Persons complain that the thin- 

 ning of fruit is expensive and laborious, and this is 

 true ; but it is a fair question if there is anything 

 worth the having of which the same may not be 

 said. If the operation pays, then there is no excuse 

 for not performing it. It should be considered, also, 

 that the fruit must all be picked sooner or later, and 

 it really does not cost very much more to pick it 

 early in the season than to pick it late ; in fact, 

 much fruit which is not worth picking in the fall 

 might have been eminently worth the labor if the 

 trees had been thinned in the early summer. 



There are two general methods of thinning fruits: 

 One is a matter of pruning, by means of which the 

 superfluous branches, or even the fruit -spurs them- 

 selves, are removed ; the other is the direct picking 

 of the redundant fruits. There is no reason in the 

 nature of things why trees should not bear every 

 year; but the formation of the fruit -spur is usually 

 such as to preclude the production of fruit upon the 

 same spur every year. The philosophy of the thin- 

 ning of fruit, therefore, is that one spur shall bear 

 one year, and another spur the next. This means 

 that when fruit is thinned, it should be the object 

 to remove it wholly from some spurs in order that 

 they may produce fruit -buds for the following year. 

 In those regions where certain fruits are systemati- 

 cally thinned, the crop is obtained with great uni- 

 formity every year. This is especially true of peaches 

 along the Michigan lake shore, and in other places 

 where this important fruit is well cared for. There 



