484 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



While more orchards are unproductive from a lack of plant food 

 than from an excess, it is well to remember that the vigorous grow- 

 ing habit of the cherry lays it open to severe injury and unfruitful- 

 ness if the soil is too rich. 



The ideal situation for the orchard is a high altitude which in- 

 sures good atmospheric as well as land drainage and lessens the 

 dangers ft*om late frosts in the spring and from the rot. The cherry 

 is an early blogmer, and it should be placed where the cold air at 

 night will settle a^ay from it, as injuries from spring frost fre- 

 quently occur. 



Distance of trees. — Since the cherry attains a large size, the limbs 

 spreading twenty feet or more and the roots reaching a long dis- 

 tance, it must be given plenty of room, and I am convinced that 30 

 feet each way is the proper distance to set sweet cherries. I have 

 seen trees 22 feet apart with their main branches interlacing, and 

 the trees were allowed to assume a pyramidal form instead of a 

 spreading habit. At 30 feet each way an acre contains 50 trees. 



Pruning. — The cherry orchard will require little pruning after 

 the first two or three years, and before that time the tree can be 

 made to assume any desired form. I believe, however, that in gen- 

 eral the pruning should be such as to give the tree a low spreading 

 head with a trunk about four feet high and with the top built out 

 on three to five main arms. We have pursued this method on the 

 Windsor and other varieties and the trees, instead of growing in the 

 usual spire shape, assume an apple-tree form. After the first two or 

 three years no pruning is needed, except to remove dead branches 

 and to keep superfluous branches from intercrossing. 



The advantages gained froih this form of tree are of great impor- 

 tance. First the body of the cherry tree is less likely to be injured 

 from the hot sun, which causes it, especially on the side of the pre- 

 vailing wind, to crack and split, exude sap and finally to die. The 

 low spreading head shades the trunk and large branches and obvi- 

 ates this difticulty to a great extent. In western New York this 

 trouble is not so serious as it is on the black lands farther west. A 

 second advantage, of equal or greater importance, lies in the fact 

 that, if allowed to grow upright, the limbs reach the height of thirty 

 to forty feet in twenty-five years, making it very difficult to gather 

 the fruit and to spray the trees. The bearing branches are always 

 found towards the extremities of the limbs, and the time which men 



