The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1909-05-15


we'll carried out is the thinning of
fruit Not all kinds of fruit need
thinning. We rarely thin cherries and
do not consider it necessary to their
sale. For exhibition purposes we may
very properly thin cherries to the end
that we may secure extra large speci-
mems, but for the market this is not
needed. Plums and prunes need thin
ming for the best results in selling
although with many growers 1t is not
deemed necessary with these fruits.
The three fruits, that must be
thinned in order to success, are apples
peaches and pears. On the Paclnc
coast the necessity for this thinning is
past the EXPERIMENTAL stage. coca.
sionally a new conner may be found
who will debate the question but the
experienced fruit grower in this Sec
ton has passed that point. The oD-
jections to thinning our apples, peaches
and pears, raised by the new conner,
are expense and waste | know an
old couple who rented a small orchard
and when told by the owner that they
must thin their peaches, they would
not do it. AS they pald
cash rent, it was no loss TO
the owner if they neglected
this work They said it would be
such waste to pull off the young
peaches and greatly reduce the crop.
The result was that their peaches
when ripe were alable-were too
Swaziland fell off and rotted.
When they saw their neighbors, who
had thinned their peaches, getting 5O
cents per box for their fruit while
their own were rOtting, they saw
their mistake.
II is not a waste to thin fruit There
will generally be as many boxes OF the
thinned fruit &c there would nave
been left on the trees. Ii half the
neaches are taken off the trees and the
remaining half should double In size,
there will be no loss in quantity. Any
one can see that. 1t is true That IN
thinning peaches we often take OH
much more than one-half and it may
be true in some cases that we may
diminish the number of boxes by very
heavy thinning But which will pay
the grower better, to have fewer boxes
that he can sell at good price or
to get two or three times as many
boxes that he can't sell at all.
The man without experience may
think he can sell his small peaches at
some price, but he can not do It, IN
our old peach orchard we had quite
number of seedlings and they bore
much better than our budded peaches.
One wear the budded peaches were
nearly all killed but the seedlings
were full. The seedlings were harder
than the budded peaches. Peaches
were scarce that year and
tried hard to sell these SEED
ling peaches but could not
get enough for them to pay the
expense of labor and boxes and eX-
pressage, so we did not make cent
on them 1t may be thought that
the reason we could not make any
thing on these seeding peaches was
because they were not good peaches.
Not so. Some of the best peaches l
ever raised were among those
peaches. 1t often happened that when
| felt peach hungry | would go to
some of those freestone seedlings and
take a fill. They were so good that l
can seem to taste them yet. The fact
is that nothing hindered the sale of
those Seeding peaches but their size.
People just will not buy such fruit.
1t is a we'll known fact that the big
snowy alberta sells far better than
many a finer but small peach.
| have nevr known peaches to be
too large to sell we'll but | have known
extra large apples to sell at an inferior
price. In 1904 we had fine crop OF
Mammoth Black Twigs, called by the
American Pathological Society, the
Arkansas. Apples were quite low in
price that year on account of the large
crop in the United States. We sold
our four tier pack Of these apples for
60 cents per box f. o. b. at our ship
ping station but could get but so cents
per box for the four and a half and
three and a half tiers. Since then
tha damands of huYerS have changed