Fruits and Culture. 371 



feet part. I am not an advocate of large apple trees with tops spread- 

 ing- thirty to thirty-five feet, and going up into the air twenty-five to 

 thirty-five feet, requiring a thirty-foot ladder to gather the fruit, but 

 prefer to set my trees eighteen feet apart, using 135 trees per acre, 

 and when the trees are four years old and come into bearing, stop all 

 other cropping and let the trees have all the ground to grow and ma- 

 ture their fruit. I would, however, fertilize and cultivate the or- 

 chards as I would for any crop. 



By setting the trees eighteen feet apart I have 100 trees more 

 to the acre to bear from the time they are four years old and on 

 This makes the orchard itself pay a good profit for the land, and there 

 is less reason or desire to crop the land with some other crop, as 

 would be done with only thirty-five trees to the acre. These trees 

 would bear for fiifteen years before crowding, when the top of every 

 other tree should be cut back to as near the body of the tree as could 

 be done, and not leave the limbs too large ; the same as would be done 

 if the tree were to be top-grafted. A new top of young thrifty growth 

 would start out, which, of course, would need to be thinned out prop- 

 erly, and in three years, the trees would be in full bearing again, when 

 the tops of those not cut back may be served in like manner. By this 

 method of treatment the top would be kept young; the fruit be grown 

 on young and thrifty wood, and the apples easily picked and trees 

 easily sprayed over those low heads. When the trees crowd again, 

 let the tops be cut back as before, or take out every other tree entirely. 

 As money from the orchard is the object, thus planting the trees 135 

 to the acre and keeping the tops within a radius of about^ sixteen feet, 

 more apples will be taken from the orchard in twenty or twenty- 

 five years, and at less expense per tree, than would be from the same, 

 ground with trees set thirty-five trees to the acre, in fifty years, for 

 there are 100 more trees' per acre to bear fruit, and on thrifty, vigor- 

 ous, young trees. — Rural New Yorker. 



GROWING TREES TO WITHSTAND DROUTH. 



(Charles E. Richards.) 



It has long been noticed how much better deep-rooted trees and 

 growing plants stand a drought than those which are shallow rooted. 

 The tendency to root in any particular way is largely an inherited 

 characteristic in the various varieties of trees or plants, but partly a 

 matter over which man has some control. There are conditions in 

 which moisture is so frequently supplied by rain, or where the 



