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Show SUCCESS IN APPLE GROWING Pruning Out Crowded Branches and Twigs Not as Helpful as Thorough Thinning Out of Fruit. Whatever may be said of the past all indications of the present point to the unquestioned probability that financial Buccess in apple growing in the future will depend upon (1) the planting and growing of varieties of high quality; (2) determined, unwavering un-wavering warfare by spraying, against insect pests and fungi; (3) elimination of Imperfect specimens, restriction of production and partial control of distribution dis-tribution of the fruit on the trees, by thicning; (4) tasteful packing and at- A Good Distribution of Fruit After Thinning. tractive presentation of the fruit on the market-Nature market-Nature has, in the past, been largely depended upon to relieve over-burdened conditions of fruiting trees. Especially has this been true with regard re-gard to the apple. There are yet many growers who as confidently look forward for-ward to the "June drop" as they do to the season of blossoms. So long as insect infestation was moderate the small proportion of little apples which became infested with coddling worms .or curculios and dropped, perhaps served as a substitute for thinning; for the so-called "JuDe drop" has largely been the sequel of this moderate moder-ate insect and fungus Infestation, and in some degree, the result of the tendency tend-ency of nature to relieve over-burdened conditions by enabling the stronger of the newly set fruits to so gain precedence over the weaker that the latter, through lack of sufficient nourishment and by being crowded, became dwarfed, withered and yellow, and soon dropped. However, with the general multiplication multipli-cation and enlargement of areas devoted de-voted to special fruit crops, concentration concen-tration and abnormal increase of insect in-sect foes have so changed conditions that vigorous methods are required to save the fruit crop from total destruction. destruc-tion. It is frequently suggested that pruning prun-ing may be successfully substituted for thinning, but while restriction by cutting cut-ting away a portion of the branches will assist materially in relieving the burden of fruit to be supported by the tree, it by no means solves the problem prob-lem of relieving clustered, overcrowded over-crowded conditions on individual branches. A branch may bring to uniform uni-form perfection a dozen specimens of fruit if such specimens be evenly distributed dis-tributed on the branch; but, if the dozen specimens be grouped into two or three crowded clusters, the chances are ten to one "that the specimens will An Over-Loaded Apple Tree. Thinning Thin-ning Should Be Accomplished by Removing Re-moving All But the Largest, Most Perfect Specimens. be much lacking in uniformity and that a considerable percentage of loss will be sustained not only from under sized, illy-formed fruits, but from in sect infestation which a clustered crowded condition especially favors ' |