122 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ JUNB, 
a garden last year where the plum trees were so laden that the branches were 
propped up with clothes’ forks. There were cordons of fruit with a vengeance. 
I remonstrated ujDon the barbarous weight of the load, and was met by the 
triumphant answer :—‘^Why, these trees have not yielded a crop this ten years, 
and I must have been a fool not to have taken all I could when I could get them.” 
I asked the grower when he expected a second. He looked puzzled for a moment, 
and finally answered Never,” and I believe he was right. Let him that is without 
fault among us, in regard to this matter, throw the first stone at this man’s folly. 
Over-cropping is the greatest evil of the present day in fruit-growing. It 
wrecks regularit}'- of supply, lowers the quality of the fruit, and prematurely 
exhausts the strength of the trees. Born of greed and ignorance, it has been upheld 
by custom, and supported by undiscriminating practice, until it has become well 
nigh universal. I therefore wish to raise as loudly as possible, on behalf of the 
trees, the cry they have all along been mutely urging, ‘‘Thin, thin our fruit!” 
Alternate cropping is but one form of that cry ; showers of dropping young fruit 
another; deformed fruit a third ; small, prematurely-ripened fruit a fourth ; weak¬ 
ness and death overtaking the trees in their youth a fifth; while many more mute 
expressions of opinion by the trees themselves upon this point might be noted by the 
careful observer. I believe it might be shown that a crop of suckers springing up 
from the root.-stocks of trees is but another form of protest against over-cropping. 
In effect the tree says :—You will burden all my fruit-bearing wood unmerci¬ 
fully. You leave no reserve of strength to come back as a fresh stream of force, 
a new current of quickening life to my constitution. Very well; I have revealed 
my will concerning this to you already in divers manners and at various times. 
And now I will try a fresh tack. I will create my own strength for my own 
need ; I will throw out supports so close to my root-stock that 3 mu cannot 
exhaust them with fruit-bearing.” But the poor tree, like many of us, had 
reckoned without its host. The cultivator sees, condemns, and slashes off the horrid 
suckers at once, and this illegitimate source of strength is suddenly drained diy. 
But the tree was right. As a remedy for over-cropping, the suckers were good 
for the life of its roots, though not for the well-being of its fruitful top ; the 
suckers were its emphatic protest against over-cropping, and, though in a widely 
different language to most of the other remonstrants, suckers also do naturally 
appeal to us along the whole of their lines, to thin, thin the fruit. So much for 
the necessity of thinning the fruit. I will now give a few simple instructions as to 
the time and manner of doing it, and the extent to which it ought to be carried. 
There is considerable difference of opinion in regard to time. The whole 
range, from flowering to the storing or seeding of the fruit, has, I believe, been 
chosen by various practitioners and writers as the very best time for thinning. 
This, while it may be puzzling to the inexperienced, should also assure them; 
for while such variations in practice may not prove one time to be as good as 
another, or better, it at least shows that so long as the thing is done, time is not 
