Thinning Small-fruits. 303 
thinned would generally bring 10 per cent to 15 
per cent more in market than the same grade from 
trees which were not thinned. According to these 
results, the second method of thinning is enough 
superior to the first to more than pay for the extra 
work involved. The second and third methods can- 
not well be compared from the data now at hand.” 
Maynard reports* experiments in thinning apples 
and plums, from which there were marked gains. 
To thin “full-sized” apple trees cost from 35 to 48 
cents. In plums, “a distinct advantage gained by 
thinning is the appreciable decrease in the ravages 
of fungous diseases, and to a small extent, of insect 
pests. This is especially noticeable in the case of 
monilia, or brown fruit-rot, which often ruins the 
peach or plum crop in wet seasons, while the speci- 
mens of fruit attacked by the cureulio were largely 
removed in thinning.” 
Tests have been made in a small way in the 
thinning of small fruits by clipping off the ends of 
the clusters. Halsted reportst as follows upon such 
a test: “Some experiments were made here [New 
Jersey Experiment Station] last year with currants, 
by removing the lower half of the flower clusters 
with a pair of scissors. It is a well-known fact 
that only a few of the berries of any cluster usually 
mature, and the free end of the stem becomes dead 
before the fruit is ripe. By the removal of this 
* Bull. 44, Mass. Hatch Exp. Sta. (1897). 
+Garden and Forest, iii, 19 (Jan. 8, 1890); also, Rept, N, J, Exp, Sta., 1889, 
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