Thinning the fruit should be a regular practice with plum-growers, but it is the operation in the growing of this fruit about which growers are most careless both as to whether it is done at all and in the manner of doing. Many growers in New York, realizing the great necessity of thinning certain varieties of Triflora, as Burbank and Abundance, follow the practice very regularly with plums of this group; but the Domesticas are seldom well thinned, though some of them, of which Lombard is a conspicuous example, ought nearly always to have anywhere from one-fifth to half of the fruit removed. Growers of some of the native varieties in regions where these sorts are grown say that under cultivation some kinds of these plums will bear themselves to death if a part of the crop be not removed in most years. Those growers in New York who thin, do the work as soon as possible after the June drop has taken place. HARVESTING AND MARKETING. Plum trees in this climate begin to bear when set from three to five years. The Triflora varieties will bear soonest, the Old World varieties next in order, say at four years from setting, and the native sorts, as a rule, come in bearing last. At eight or ten years of age, prolific varieties of the Triflora and Domestica sorts bear in a good year about three bushels of fruit; the Insititia and native varieties, on the Station grounds, at least, do not bear as much, though most of the plums of these two groups bear more regularly than the first named groups. Plums in this State, and east of the Mississippi generally, are picked and put upon the market just before they reach edible condition; while farther away they must be picked much greener. It is the practice in the East to pick while still somewhat green because the fruit so picked is best handled at this stage of maturity and the brown-rot fungus is likely to destroy much of the crop if left until fully matured. Some of the Triflora sorts, Abundance, Burbank and October, for example, are picked from a week to ten days before ripe and yet develop very good color and flavor. The Domesticas need not be, and are not, picked quite so green. In picking, great diversity exists as to ladders, receptacles, and manner of conveyance from orchard to packing house. These need not be discussed here, nor need the methods of picking be spoken of further than to say that while good growers consider it vital not to bruise the fruit nor destroy the delicate bloom, if such injuries can be avoided, pickers in general are not nearly as observant of these important details as they should be.