Pruning Mature Trees. 19 
desirable on account of the stronger fruit buds being nearer the tips, and 
in cutting back such rank growth the pruning must not be too severe. The 
plant should be made to assume as near a tree-form as possible, and then, 
in addition, it should be pruned with the idea of growing a goodly supply 
of new wood each season. 
THINNING FRUIT. 
In fancy fruit-growing, the necessity for thinning will become more 
and more apparent as the acreage devoted to orchards increases and com¬ 
petition becomes more keen. While the wisdom of thinning peaches is no 
longer doubted, the growers are not so willing to take up systematic work 
in thinning apples and pears. But the time is coming when the fruit-grower 
will be forced to conclude that it no longer pays to 1 grow poor fruit. Even 
now, the years that the grower makes a profit in shipping choice fruit, are 
the exception rather than the rule. There are but few localities' where 
choice fruit cannot be grown, and wherever shipped, such fruit must gen¬ 
erally compete with the home-grown product. On the other 'hand, locali¬ 
ties where strictly fancy fruit can be grown are limited, and competition in 
this class is more impartial. The competition is between localities which 
are probably equally distant from the market, and the one producing the 
best fruit is the successful competitor. 
To a certain extent, pruning is a method of thinning, but it will not 
take the place of hand-thinning entirely. The production of a fancier grade 
of fruit is not the only benefit derived from thinning; it encourages more 
regular bearing; lessen the loss from the breakng of limbs and gives the 
grower a chance to destroy insect infected fruit and thus check 
the spread of insects early in the season. The tree that has been properly 
thinned should produce a good crop of fruit buds each year, and if it has 
been properly trained and thinned it will never need a prop. While many 
have observed that apple and pear trees are inclined to bear alternate years, 
probably few understand the cause. Fruit spurs with terminal fruit buds, 
as those of the apple and the pear, generally bear only alternate years, and 
if the spurs are all full of fruit one year, the next must be an “off-year,” 
as we say. Not only do the spurs fail to bear annually, but if the tree is 
overloaded, spurs that produce bloom, even though they fail to set fruit, may 
not be sufficiently nourished to produce fruit buds for the following season. 
If the tree bears only a moderate crop of fruit, spurs that produce bloom 
but no fruit, often develop fruit buds the same season. W“here the tree is 
bearing a light load, spurs may mature fruit and develop fruit buds the same 
season. Varieties differ and, while some are regular bearers under almost 
any treatment, others show a stubborn inclination to bear alternate years. 
After the old tree has fallen into the habit of bearing alternate years it is 
no doubt harder to get it back to a regular bearing habit. “Off-years” are 
not uncommon with some of the fruit trees bearing from axillary fruit buds, 
but it is not so pronounced as with the apple and pear. 
Thinning the Apple.—Fixed rules to be followed in thinning are hard 
to give. Much depends upon the general thrift of the trees, and, as in 
pruning, the grower will have to learn much by experience. If we thin to 
encourage annual bearing, it will be seen that all the fruit must be removed 
from some of the spurs and, at the same time, the number of fruits remain¬ 
ing must be reduced to such an extent that the tree is not overburdened. 
Some thin to leave the fruits so far apart, but a rule fixing a certain space 
between apples will not hold good in all cases. If we were always sure the 
tree had been properly pruned, we might be able to give a satisfactory rule 
to be followed, leaving the fruits so many inches apart. A plan the writer 
has tried and found very satisfactory is to so thin as to have a certain num¬ 
ber of boxes of fruit on the tree. Suppose you decide that the trees should 
produce ten boxes of fancy fruit each. A fairly uniform grade of apples 
ranging from two and one-half to three inches in diameter will pack about 
150 to the box, and by thinning two or three trees and leaving the 1,500 ap¬ 
ples, actually counting them or estimating them as closely as possible, one 
