306 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



but before they have become of sufficient size to be 

 a tax upon the tree. Peaches are generally thinned 

 when they are about the size of a small hickory nut 

 (that is, about the size of the end of one's thumb), 

 and apples are thinned 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 all impracticable, because they do not 

 discriminate between good and poor fruit, because 

 they do not leave the fruit well distributed over the 

 branches, and because they are very likely to break 

 off the spurs. Some of the implements figured in 

 Chapter VIII. may be used in special cases. It 

 really requires more discrimination and judgment to 

 thin fruit properly than it does to pick it. In the 

 thinning of peaches it is a good rule to allow none 

 of the fruits to hang closer than four or six inches 

 of each other. This means that in years of very 

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

 to be picked off 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 depends upon the form and 

 pruning of the tree and the amount of fruit to be 

 removed. The result is also greatly influenced by the 

 character of the workmen and the price paid for labor. 

 Full grown peach trees may be thinned for 15 to 50 

 cents each. Apple trees twenty -five and thirty years 

 old have been well thinned for 30 to 80 cents each. 



