The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-05-19

thousands. But when we get at It.
the difficulties are not nearly so great
as they seem to the inexperienced.
We count the expense of thinning as
part of the business just as GER
tainly as the buying of boxes and pa
per and the paying for hauling and
any other necessary work The cues
ton with the thoughtful fruit grower
is not how much / pay out, but how
much profit can I realize after all
expenses are paid AS I have fire.
quently stated in these columns, we
find that it costs not far from so
cents per box to meet all the ex-
penses OF putting each box of apples
on the market. This does not in
clude freight and commission when
we ship to Seattle or other markets
but is cost (. 0. b, at our shipping sta
ton. When apples sell I. o. b. at our
station for 800 per box our profit is
so cents per box. Often the yield is
several hundred boxes per acre leav-
ing us good profit. Sometimes we
realize 81 per box or even more and
then the profits are large.
One OF the important questions Is,
How to thin? No hard and fast rules
can be laid down. We instruct our
thinners to take hold of the bunch of
apples with one hand, generally the
left hand, unless the person is left
handed. With the other hand take
hold of the small apples and turn
them backward and break them off.
If the apples grow in clusters, as they
frequently do, good rule is to thin
to one in place. Such apples as
Ben Davis, Jonathan, Rome Bearty.
Winesap and many others will be we'll
thinned by this rule OF one in place.
With some varieties, like Missouri
Pippin, this rule will not work well,
and then we must give a rule of
four or five inches apart and one In
place. These directions here given
will be much modified If we do heavy
pruning and it may be, in some
cases, no hand thinning will be need
ed. There must be a boss with the
thinners who knows his business and
who can direct the thinners to do
more or less as the conditions re-
quire.
The time to thin is an important
matter. No particular date can be set |
for it is the condition of the fruit |
that must govern in such matters |
Some few years ago the set of peaches
in our old orchard was very heavy |
We were arranging to start a gang
Of thinners on that orchard of 400 |
trees on certain Monday morning in |
the latter part of May The peaches
were about as big as the end of nay |
thumb. kept watching this orchard. |
to see if there was any dropping of |
the fruit. About Friday before the |
we had set as the time to be- |
gin the thinning, was passing |
the orchard and found many |
peaches on the ground l called the |
attention of my sons to this dropping |
and the result was that we postponed |
the beginning of this work. The drop |
ping continued to such an extent that |
We did not have to thin at all and |
in some parts of the orchard the crop |
was too light. Had we thinned those |
peaches ten days or two weeks earlier I
than the time we set to begin and |
then the drop had come on, as it prob |
ably would, we would not have had |
over a half crop of peaches. This then
is the rule: We must wait till we
are sure we are past the season for
the drop.
Apples should as rule be thinned |
about month later than peaches In |
the Mississippi valley there is what is |
called the June drop" of apples. |
Sometimes this drop is a serious men
ace to a full crop. 1t is thought by
many of the best informed horti- |
culturists that the June drop" is |
caused by cold rains. With us in our |
warm irrigated valleys We have no |
June drop" for we have no cold |
rains I do not think from what |
can learn about the matter that this |
drop is bad anywhere on the Pacific |
coast. AS a rule with us peaches are !
the latter part of May and |
the fore part of June. Apples are
about a month later. It may
be said truthfully, however, that fruit
may be thinned much later than the |
dates here mentioned. Sometimes we
have thinned apples up to the middle |