68 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



you don't any other way. It has been scattered in our 

 State a good deal by plants brought to summer homes. It may 

 be only a little shrub and it will make the most beautiful center 

 to start from, imaginable. Freezing all winter doesn't have any 

 effect on it. It will increase in cold storage, I know that. I 

 brought some infested apples from Boston in September to study 

 the varieties. I did not have occasion to use them until January. 

 The scale had actually increased in cold storage. They increase 

 until the first of December in our section. There were lively 

 ones to be found on the plants a day or two ago. Cold storage 

 at 22 didn't stop them. 



( We can give them 32 below. ) 



The scale will not propagate under that but it will not kill 

 them all. Had 30 below in Northern New York. Those two 

 cold winters did thin them out — that is not sufficient — if there is 

 99 per cent killed every year there will be plenty left to run the 

 business. 



Thinning overbearing trees is attracting more attention among 

 our growers. So far only a few have undertaken it to any 

 extent. The average grower cannot understand that it is a feas- 

 ible proposition. Nor is it in the average orchard. The trees 

 must be suited to the process. The past season has been the 

 third bearing year that we have operated on the same trees. I 

 wish to say here before going into the detail of the work, that 

 no amount of thinning even to removing the whole crop at any 

 time between blossoming and when the fruit was an inch in 

 diameter has produced the least efifect to make Baldwin an an- 

 nual bearer or change the bearing year. On Fall Pippin we 

 could see some results. In our operations the past season we 

 made the usual mistake of not thinning enough, although in 

 some cases we removed a full third of the crop. But where 

 we operated was very evident to the casual observer, and the 

 profit was equally evident when the fruit was harvested, in the 

 change of grade. 



We did go into exact figures with certain trees to see what 

 the results were. With one tree this season we took ofif 3000 

 apples at the time we thinned them. Well now, at a very small 

 size of apples, that was enough for six barrels. When we picked 

 that tree we took ofif about 5070 apples. Probably another 

 thousand nearly, dropped ofif in September in the hot days. 



