INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 247 



is ten to twelve feet, but that is not the distance in our locality. Some 

 are planted sixteen feet apart, which haven't enough room, and I do not 

 think sixteen feet is any too great a distance for a dwarf pear. 



As to the selection of varieties, this, as I have before said, as in the 

 case of the apple, will have to be decided upon by those here present. 

 I notice in the rear of the room a number of varieties which are very pro- 

 ductive; no doubt they are the same varieties that gi'ow in our section, and 

 you, no doubt, have some varieties which do better with you than they 

 would do in our section. So j^ou must be the judges in that respect, I 

 not being posted as to the varieties which will be tlie better producers in 

 this location. 



Now, as regards the cultivation of the orchard, as a general thing, I 

 thinli you will all agree with me that clean culture is the best treatment 

 that we can give an orchard, either an apple or a pear. There are some 

 exceptions to this, however. In the section from which we just came, 

 down to this meeting, near Orleans, Indiana, they find if they keep the 

 ground too clean and allow no vegetation to grow, there is danger of the 

 land washing, and gulleys will be cut out. I was in one orchard that had 

 been injured very much in that way; so it is impracticable to give as 

 clean culture to their trees as we would in Michigan. I don't know about 

 this section. 



In regard to clean culture of the bearing orchard, there are also some 

 drawbacks. When the trees are too highly cultivated there may be greater 

 danger of blight. The conditions of a young orchard are necessarily a 

 little different than a bearing orchard, either in the case of a pear or 

 apple. Of course, where the trees are a considerable distance apart, and 

 there is room for planting some crop, not a hay crop, but such as corn, 

 the ground between the rows may be utilized and the cultivation of it 

 kept up between the rows thoroughly. 



I don't want you to think that this cultivation of the orchard should 

 cease after the trees get a good start and are growing nicely. I don't 

 think there is any time in the orchard when good care is more essential 

 than in the first few years, but it should not be neglected after that. It 

 is a very common occurrence for a man to plant a young orchard and 

 the first few years, until it is growing nicely, take very good care of it, 

 and when the trees are about ready to bear fruit, neglect it, cease culti- 

 vating it, and turn the stock in to do the pruning. 



I remember on a trip last year in Alpena county, of passing an orchard 

 of four hundred apple trees, nice trees, which would have been in good 

 shape for bearing, but the owner had turned in a flock of sheep, and 

 every one of the trees was peeled from the ground up as high as the sheep 

 could reach. That is too often the case. A man spends money for trees, 

 he puts them out, and then neglects them. 



As to the care of the bearing orchard: The apple orchard, the old 

 orchards, have usually been allowed to grow up in grass sod and been 



