302 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



16 per cent less fruit, but about 10 per cent more 

 No. 1 fruit than did the unthinned Baldwin. With 

 the second method Baldwin, thinned, gave 26 per 

 cent less fruit and about 22 per cent more No. 1 

 fruit than did the corresponding trees which were 

 not thinned. 



"With the third method, Hubbardston gave 25 

 per cent less fruit, but about 17 per cent more 

 No. 1 fruit than did the unthinned Hubbardston. 



"The Greenings were very heavily loaded in 

 1895, and in 1896 they bore a good crop, but were 

 not overburdened, and needed comparatively little thin- 

 ning. They were thinned according to the second 

 method, and gave 6 per cent more fruit and about 

 10 per cent more first -class fruit than the trees did 

 which were not thinned. 



"In all these tests the picked fruit gave about 

 one bushel of culls where the fruit was thinned, to 

 three bushels where it was not thinned. Where the 

 fruit was thinned the "drops" were fewer and con- 

 siderably better, and in all grades the fruit was 

 clearly superior in size and color to fruit of the same 

 grade which was not thinned. The first grade in- 

 cluded no apples less than two and one -half inches in 

 diameter, and the proportion which measured two and 

 one -half inches was a great deal larger where the 

 fruit was thinned than where it was not, so that No. 

 2 apples from trees which were thinned were much 

 superior to the No. 2 fruit from trees not thinned 

 Mr. Wilson [in whose orchard the tests were made] 

 estimates that the fruit from the tree* which were 



