Thinning Small -fruits, 303 



thinned would generally bring 10 per cent to 15 

 per cent more in market than the same grade from 

 trees which were not thinned. According to these 

 results, the second method of thinning is enough 

 superior to the first to more than pay for the extra 

 work involved. The second and third methods can- 

 uot well be compared from the data now at hand." 



Maynard reports* experiments in thinning apples 

 and plums, from which there were marked gains. 

 To thin "full -sized" apple trees cost from 35 to 48 

 cents. In plums, "a distinct advantage gained by 

 thinning is the appreciable decrease in the ravages 

 of fungous diseases, and to a small extent, of insect 

 pests. This is especially noticeable in the case of 

 monilia, or brown fruit -rot, which often ruins the 

 peach or plum crop in wet seasons, while the speci- 

 mens of fruit attacked by the curculio were largely 

 removed in thinning." 



Tests have been made in a small way in the 

 thinning of small fruits by clipping off the ends of 

 the clusters. Halsted reportst as follows upon such 

 a test: "Some experiments were made here [New 

 Jersey Experiment Station] last year with currants, 

 by removing the lower half of the flower clusters 

 with a pair of scissors. It is a well-known fact 

 that only a few of the berries of any cluster usually 

 mature, and the free end of the stem becomes dead 

 before the fruit is ripe. By the removal of this 



*Bu]l. 44, Mass. Hatch Exp. Sta. (1897). 



t Garden and Forest, iii. 19 (Jan. 8, 1890); also, Kept. N. J. F.xp. SU. 18, 



