The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1911-06-01
PROF. LEWIS GIVES
THINNING ADVICE

sive growers, Prof. Lewis says,
nevertheless there are growers who
do not pay close attention to thinning.
There is no one practice in orcharding
that will pay larger dividends than
thinning. 1t means the difference be-
tween the first class fruit and Gull
fruit.
Thinning is helpful in many ways.
First, it gives a large per cent Of good
fruit, In thinning all malformed,
wormy and diseased fruit must be re-
moved, leaving only the best. This
will greatly reduce the number of culls
that will have to be handled in the
fall, and will give a larger percentage
of high class fruit, reducing the
amount Of cuIls to the minimum. |
have known growers to have only
one box of culls out of twelve hundred
boxes Of apples.
"This can only be obtained by eff
cient spraying, followed by careful
thinning. Probably the cost of thin
ming would be much less than the cost
Of handling a large amount Of cull
fruits This is very valuable in fruit
like the peaches. There is no money
in growing Gull or pie peaches, will"
there IS lots Of money in growing ana
handling first class peaches, pears,
apricots, and similar fruits.
With apples, the largest do not
bring the best prices. The trade seems
to want medium sized fruit. 1t is pos
siSle to regulate the size of the apple
by judcious thinning. Thinning gives
better color to the fruit, as it allows
the sunlight to play all around. BY
judicious thinning, too, the vitality
Of the tree can be greatly saved.
Thinning also reduces the number of
seeds produced. AS the season draws
to a close, where the tree is producing
large amount of seed the drain on
the tree is very heavy. Judicious
thinning will go long way toward
making the trees annual bearers. If
trees are allowed to set too heavy one
year they will not set well the follow
ing year. This habit can be overcome
by thinning and modify it to a consid-
cradle degree.
From experiments | have conducted
with the yellow apples and some varie-
ties Of pears at the Oregon Expert
ment Station, and also in Southern
Oregon, have found that where all
the fruit is removed from certain spurs
they are apt to produce the second
season. With some varieties, in order
to obtain success, two specimens
should be left on certain spurs and
none on others. The typical spur pro
duces fruit one year and wood growth
the next. With red varieties of apples,
where two specimens come together it
prevents high coloring. There is
probably a little greater danger of
where there is more fruit on
a spur than just one specimen.
Pruning and thinning have a very
close relation, as pruning is often the
out of undesirable bearing
wood. Cherries, for example. are
thinned by pruning; the same is true
of most Of the small fruits. Reduc-
ing runners of Strawberries is a form
of thinning. Prunes are also thnned
by pruning, as with this variety of
fruit we must produce certain
amount of strong wood each yaer in
order to produce size. The same
holds true with peaches. Give them
good, vigorous, annual pruning, re-
moving about three-fourths of the
fruit on the remaining wood. Only
by such practice can the finest speci-
mems of fruit be obatined.
"The time thin is after the June
crop, though some growers thin before
this. believe it is unwise to do so
until we have studied the drop ques-
Jion little more closely. Where
large orchards are to be thinned one
must begin early, when the fruit is not
larger than a hazel nut. With small
it is a good plan to thin
more than once during a season. In
thinning one should leave the best
specimens. In some fruits this will
be the center fruit, and in others the
outside fruit. The amount of thin
ming will be controlled by the variety,
size, amount of fruit set. and so on.
The Yellow Newtown apple will often
set tive'fruits to the cluster, while the
Spitzenberg and Comice set more than
one.
"The cost of thinning tree will
vary according to the size, etc. 1t
will run from fifteen cents to $l.5Ol
per tree, All of this. however, is a
small percentage per box, and, as
already shown, is the determining
factor between first class and Gull
fruit. "