Tig 



to man. While the west may have a little more of sunshine, on ac- 

 count of their dry atmosphere, do we not have sunshine here in the 

 east? The chief point of difference lies in the fact that the method 

 of growing trees in the west is such as to make the greatest possi- 

 ble use of that sunshine, while we in the east are so anxious to get 

 an immense amount of bearing wood on our trees and also crowd 

 our trees so that they interlace, thus making our orchards appear 

 more like a forestry proposition. Their trees are low and with 

 open heads — vase form. In our greed we leave so much brush in 

 our trees that a sparrow can hardly fly through them. We over- 

 work our trees and then starve them. They restrict their trees by 

 severe pruning and thinning of the fruit so that the trees can do 

 their best and keep it up. In trying to discourage us the western 

 land agent says we could not have their kind of open heads, that 

 "The sun scald would kill your trees." Don't you believe it. The 

 only disease we need fear in the east is "dry rot" and the most 

 violent form of this disease is where it attacks the man rather than 

 the tree. 



While we must be more thorough in our spraying, we must 

 practice more intelligent pruning and thinning of fruit if we want 

 the high grade that is skimming the cream from our own markets. 

 I know that some of my eastern horticultural friends are issuing 

 words of caution for fear that we will prune too much, and thus 

 "upset the balance" or do something equally unwise. Did you ever 

 stop to consider that our "forestry" methods have been standing us 

 on our heads so long that we have lost all thought of any "bal- 

 ance"? What, pray, will restore the "balance" to a starved root 

 system, but to restrict by pruning the heavily loaded top? An 

 overloaded and starved team are first relieved by removing a part 

 of the load. Where you find one grower who has made the im- 

 probable mistake of pruning his orchard too much, I can show you 

 thousands of growers in leading fruit sections who do not prune 

 enough and hundreds of others who do not prune at all. 



When the western grower sees an imperfect apple on his tree 

 in the growing time, he realizes that that fruit can never grow to be 

 anything but a cull and it is at once taken off to make room for 

 other fruits. They thus grade their fruit on the trees, because they 

 know that it takes as much of the vitality of the tree to ripen a cull 

 as it does to put the finish on a perfect fruit. In the east the prac- 

 tice is to leave all the fruits that set until harvest time, then paw 

 them over on the packing table to find enough fairly good specimens 

 to face out the barrel. What happens after that we blush to relate. 

 You say it costs money to thin apples. Does it cost any more, or 

 even as much, to pick off the extra fruits and break up the clusters 

 in June, dropping the little culls on the ground, than to wait until 

 harvest time and then pick the whole mess (and, by the way, that is 

 a very good word) carry them down the ladders, pour out on the 

 packing table, sort them and put the culls in the cider lot or in a 

 more improper place? 



