THINNING 169 



Does thinning pay ? Practical growers, as well as experimenters, 

 generally concede that when growing for the general market, if the 

 crop set is very full, — making it probable that there will be a large 

 and widespread crop of small-sized fruit, — it will pay to thin to 

 such an extent as to insure good-sized fruit. For the fancy trade, 

 thinning of fruit will undoubtedly pay well. 



It is possible to apply mathematics to the solution of this ques- 

 tion. If apples are not thinned, there would naturally be plenty of 

 them, selling from 40 to 50 cents a bushel ; whereas, if properly 

 thinned, larger, choicer fruits would be obtained. The number of 

 bushels would be less, but the price would be higher — $1.00 a 

 bushel or more — because of the greater desirability. In terms of 

 dollars and cents, 100 bushels of unthinned fruit at 50 cents would 

 bring $50.00; 60 bushels of thinned fruit at $1.00 would bring 

 $60.00. The thinning would generally not cost as much as the 

 extra expense of picking, grading, packing, packages, etc. for the 

 unthinned fruit. There seems to be, therefore, a small net bal- 

 ance in dollars and cents in favor of the thinned fruit. Besides 

 the commercial money value there would be the probable keeping 

 of customers by selling extra-fancy apples instead of average sorts. 



