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that which remains, and sparing the energy of the tree. It is almost 
as important as pruning, and it is becoming to be regarded as 
essential to the profitable production of first-quality fruit as is 
pruning, cultivating, and manuring. Thus, in its proper season, it 
should receive as much attention on the part of the grower. ‘The 
best time for thinning fruit is after the late spring frosts and other 
early accidents are passed, but before they have become of sufficient 
size to be a tax upon the tree. 
In connection with thinning, the following points are worth 
bearing in mind:—-Fruit trees form their blossom buds a year or 
two before these buds actually bear fruit. It thus follows that if a 
tree is allowed to overbear, it is hardly expected that it will also 
nourish as it should do the ensuing season’s crop of blossom buds, 
and these being feeble and wanting in vigour and strength will, it is 
more than likely, in the proper time fail to set and perfect their 
fruit. Occasional heavy crops, therefore, more especially on trees 
growing in land of only moderate fertility, thus accounts for the 
fact that many trees which are allowed to grow and bear at their 
own sweet will are seen to carry prodigious crops one season and to 
be shy bearers the season after. 
Overbearing not only enfeebles the coming season’s buds, but it 
also severely disturbs the constitution of most trees. Miore energy 
is spent by them in perfecting the embryo, which is the essential 
part of the plant’s seed or kernel, than is required in elaborating 
the pulp, and as much, if not more, valuable mineral constituents 
are abstracted from the soil in order to produce the seed as it does 
to manufacture the flesh part of the crop. Thinninz, therefore, by 
reducing the number of matured seeds, considerably lessens the 
drain on the vitality of the plant and of the soil. Thinning, some 
argue, is a costly operation, and necessitates in some cases the ex- 
penditure of 6d. to 2s. a tree in labour spent on that operation 
alone, and in some eases, when old and vigorous trees have to be 
carefully gone over, it may cost as much as 2s. to 3s. for so doing. It 
should be considered, on the other hand, that the fruit must be 
picked sooner or later, and that as far as actual cost goes, it does 
not matter whether this amount is spent before the seeds form or 
when the fruit is ripe and ready for market. 
The extra cost of picking, therefore, need not be entertained, 
as. it is practically the same, whether part of the crop is picked 
when thinning and part at the time the fruit ripens, or whether 
the whole crop is picked at the one time. But, apart from the con- 
sideration of more even crops in a succession of seascns, thinning 
also influences to a marked degree the season’s crop. Although less 
in number, fruit from a thinned tree equals in weight, and certainly 
surpasses, as regards size and market value, fruit from a like tree 
left unthinned, 
