HARVESTING THE CROP 233 



he has taken off too many. When it comes time to pick he 

 almost always wishes he had taken off more. Western orchard- 

 ists are by far the best authorities in the matter, and many ot* 

 them recommend thinning apples to as much as 8 or 10 inches 

 apart. If this seems like too much, begin by taking off all the 

 apples but one from each spur. Then gradually increase the dis- 

 tance as confidence and courage increase. With peaches and 

 plums a good rule to begin on is to thin until no two fruits 

 touch each other. Of course this really means that the fruit 

 will average a fair distance apart and this can he increased as 

 suggested for apples. The main thing is to get the practice 

 introduced. 



The Cost. What discourages many from thinning is the 

 notion that it is an endless job and that the cost is very high. 

 Of course it does cost, but one should reflect that it costs little 

 more to pick an apple by thinning in July, than it does to pick 

 it by harvesting it in October. The writer kept careful account 

 of the cost of thinning an orchard of fifty-three bearing Baldwin 

 trees one season. They were gone over twice, once the fore part 

 of July and a second time the fore part of August, and the total 

 cost was about forty cents per tree. It was the orchard shown in 

 Figure 106, and the trees would average about four barrels per 

 tree, which made the cost of thinning about ten cents per barrel. 

 As no check trees were left without thinning, it is impossible to 

 say how much the fruit was increased in value, but it was certainly 

 a beautiful crop and an apple buyer offered for it what he claimed 

 was a dollar a barrel more than he was paying for most fruit, 

 because of their uniformity and size. This would make the profit 

 due to thinning one thousand per cent. 



HARVESTING THE CROP 



Coming now to real picking, several questions of importance 

 present themselves: First, what equipment is needed for pick- 

 ing; second, when fruit should be picked; third, how it should 

 be picked. 



