186 
pound this would take 500 full size apricots to the tree. By count- 
ing the apricots on a few trees, the operator soon learns when suffi- 
cient 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 214 inches in diameter; the ordinary fruit of 
this class measures only 114 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. 
Peaches and nectarines, next to apricots, require thinning, and 
according to the earliness or lateness of the variety, and of the 
locality, this operation should be done from the middle of November 
to the middle of December. They are generally thinned when about 
the size of a hazel nut, or a little larger, and a space of 4 to 6 
inches should be left between each fruit. In Michigan and in 
Georgia, where peach growing ranks as one of the leading indus- 
tries, only two peaches are left on twigs 4g inch in diameter, after 
the trees have been well pruned; three or four on twigs °4 inch in 
diameter, and if the land is not irrigated and is not naturally moist, 
only half; thus the trees will bear a good crop every year, and will 
be long-lived. All thinning is carefully done by hand, and all double 
fruit is taken off. The fruit on the points of the branches should be 
much further apart than that along the limbs of the tree. Peaches 
(except the early flat China peach), when less than 134 inches in 
diameter, are not saleable, and by thinning their size are easily in- 
creased to 2 inches, or three times the size; they then bring much 
better prices. 
Apples are thinned from the time they are of the size of a hazel 
nut until they are thrice as large. The ordinary rule in thinning 
them is, after the tree is in good bearing, only leave one apple to 
the spur, or one, or at most two, where there were bunches of three 
to 10. 
Prunes, it is the Californian experience, need thinning to give 
good fleshy fruit, especially when they show a tendency to overbear, 
when they only produce fruit that, when dried, is nothing but skin 
and seed. 
Grapes in hothouses in the cooler climate of Europe are sys- 
tematically thinned, and the careful grower, armed with a sharp 
pair of pointed scissors, snips off the tail end of the bunches, as well 
as the hanging wings or shoulders, and also all small and half- 
developed berries. By this means the bunch assumes the shape of a 
