PREHARVEST APPLE DROP 17 



Table 11. Effect of Spraying with Borax and of Thinning on the Average 

 Number of Seeds Per Fruit of Mcintosh 



* Significant ** Highly Significant 



although these trees had never produced fruit with internal cork, 

 there are trees in the same block which, in some years, have been 

 rather severely affected. 



In the earlier drops, seed number was slightly higher than in 

 fruit that dropped just before the harvest date (Table 12). This is 

 opposed to the findings of Southwicki*^* that there was a moderate 

 positive correlation between date of drop and seed content. 



Table 12. Average Number of Seeds in Mcintosh Drops on Different Dates 



The fruits from thinned trees were larger in both picked and 

 dropped lots than those from non-thinned trees, but there was no 

 difference in fruit size between borax-sprayed trees and unsprayed 

 trees. In all treatments and controls, picked fruit averaged about 

 20 per cent larger than dropped fruit gathered at the same time. 

 Difference in seed number afl'ects the size of fruits on a given tree^i 

 but seed content differs between trees. 



DROPPING AND FRUIT COLOR 



Southwick^'' found in one block that well-colored fruit did not 

 dro]) like pale, streaked fruit, but this condition was not consistent 

 in another block. The writer could not discover any such correla- 

 tion. Observations on 27 Mcintosh trees in 1939 with relation to red 



