174 



and 4 inches in diameter, the larger fruit is not twice as big as 

 the first, but eight times larger, for the cube of 2 is only 8, 

 whereas the cube of 4 is 64, or eight times more. By a similar 

 reasoning it is easy to demonstrate that fruit 3 inches in 

 diameter is more than double the size of fruit 2 inches in 

 diameter. For convenience of calculation in multiplying and 

 dividing let us reduce the inches to quarter inches, and it is thus 

 found that the volume of a fruit 12 quarters in diameter is more 

 than three times the size in cubic measurement of another fruit 

 8 quarters in diameter. 



Thinning not only increases size, but also improves appearance. 

 It thus pleases the consumer, sells easier, and is more profitable to 

 the grower. Poor fruit, on the other hand, gluts the market, 

 brings down prices, and often does not pay for handling. 



The theory of thinning having now been minutely gone into, a 

 few practical hints regarding the method, so far as the different 

 varieties of fruit trees go, may be of value. 



Hand labour, as in many other operations which require 

 skill as well as judgment, is the only practical method at present. 

 Apricots are the first fruit which come ready for thinning, and this 

 may be commenced when the fruit is about the size of marbles, 

 sometime towards the beginning of November ; at that time the 

 fruit has stopped dropping, and the seeds have not commenced to 

 harden. 



Apricots intended for canning or drying should not go more 

 than 10 to the lb., and to attain that weight they must measure If 

 inches in diameter, and should be thinned to about 2| inches apart 

 on the branches where the trees are well loaded, and hav r e not been 

 thinned by frost or by beetles. Should they have dropped a great 

 many fruit, and left them, in bunches, the smaller fruit only, which 

 would not develop, are rubbed off. Californian apricot growers 

 consider that a healthy tree, having a body three inches in diameter, 

 or a little over, should carry fifty pounds of fruit, and at 10 to the 

 pound this would take 500 full size apricots to the tree. By 

 counting the apricots on a few trees, the operator soon learns when 

 sufficient thinning is done, though the tendency at first is to leave 

 too much fruit. Other practical growers estimate that, on a limb 

 four feet long, with three to five laterals, there are, under conditions 

 of unrestricted growth, between 100 to 125 apricots. When 

 properly thinned and cut back that limb should produce not more 

 than one fourth of that number, or 20 to 24 apricots, but they are 

 perfect in quality, superior in size, and classed as " extras." 

 Apricots thus treated measure about 2^ inches in diameter; the 

 ordinary fruit of this class measures only 1J inches. In other 

 words the larger fruit is over three and a half times the size of the 

 smaller one, and the one-fourth thinned crop will occupy about 

 three-fourths bulk space of the full unthinned crop. 



