ORCHARDS AND FRUIT CULTURE. Qf 



something out of nothing; and is it not very much like this to 

 plant an orchard and leave it neglected upon the barren hillside, 

 and then complain because we get no fruit? 



I will not take up your time with more extended remarks, as I 

 did not design to exhaust the subject, but merely to present some 

 general points in fruit culture. 



Mr. IIersey. How far apart would you plant trees in an Or- 

 chard ? 



Mr. Gold. I should give them considerable room — 30 or 40 

 feet, at least — rather than the close planting I have sometimes 

 seen practiced. Close planting does very well when the trees are 

 young, but at full maturity, it is a great damage. The necessity 

 that I have seen brought upon some orchardists of cutting down 

 half of their trees, fifteen or twenty years after planting, has not 

 seemed to be beneficial even to the trees that were left. 



Mr. Lucas. How many would you ordinarily set upon an acre 

 of ground ? 



Mr. Gold. About forty apple trees. 



Mr. Lucas. A good orchard man in our county, Mr. , 



says seventy here in the State of Maine. 



Mr. Gold. Mr. Stephen Hoyt of New Canaan, Conn., one of 

 our best nurserymen, has many acres planted in orchards. He 

 planted this large number to the acre, and he is now — the trees 

 having been planted some fifteen or twenty years — obliged to cut 

 down one-half of them. It is a very disagreeable necessity to be 

 forced upon any one, and it does not seem to favor the trees that 

 are left. I was through his orchards last fall, and he told me he 

 had planted too thick. 



Mr. Lucas. I have an acre and a half that has two hundred 

 trees. The first of them were set out perhaps forty years since, 

 and about half of them are alive ; nearly half of them died in 1856 

 and 1857. Those trees were set out a rod apart. The proper 

 distance is an important consideration. 



Mr. Gold. Some seasons there seems to be an advantage de. 

 rived from this natural shelter ; other seasons it seems to operate 

 disadvantageous^ ; but I prefer to look forward to the full de- 

 velopment of the tree, rather than to its partial development foi 

 the first few years. 



Hon. S. F. Perley of Naples. I have been exceedingly in- 

 terested in the remarks of our friend from Connecticut in regard 

 to the manner of treating apple trees, in the first place, because 



