No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURiE. 425 



we are going to grow. In some localities they can raise Northern 

 Spies profiitably in another locality they can raise some other 

 variety to better advantage. These things we have to decide for 

 ourselves. We cannot trust the professors from the university to 

 tell us, unless they have investigated that particular soil. These 

 are conditions which come up against the practical man, and are for 

 him to decide. The Baldwin is the commercial apple of to-day in 

 our State. We select as good a lot as we have ou the farm, pre- 

 ferably a clover sod, and prepare it thoroughly. We should prepare 

 it as thoroughly as for a crop of potatoes or corn, and select and 

 plant the tree in the fall. We plant our trees about forty feet apart. 

 It is not too wide and the way I have been planting in recent j-ears 

 is to plant the row next the fence first, set this row twenty feet from 

 the fence and the trees forty feet apart in the row. When planting 

 the next row, set trees just half way between the trees in the first 

 row, planting each row alternately. The rows are thirty-seven feet 

 apart, thus bringing the trees forty-two feet apart on the angle, 

 while in the rows they are forty feet apart. 



I put a row of stakes close to the- feuce, all around the field 

 the right distance apart for each row. Then, if you can see across 

 the field, sight across the field from one stake on one side to the op- 

 posite stake on the other side, and have a man place a stake in the 

 middle of the field, and in that way put a row of stakes through 

 the middle of the field, each way. Then from either quarter of the 

 field, you have two stakes to go by, in both directions, and do not 

 have a stake to move, in either digging the holes or for setting the 

 tree. 



Be careful after you have planted six or eight trees not to look 

 back to see is they are straight in the row, for you will find them 

 varying a little from one side to the other. The last tree set may 

 be one inch out of the way. If you go back and move it straight 

 with the row and set another tree with the stake, you will find this 

 one out of line with the row also. If you will leave them as they 

 set and go according to the stakes, and stakes only, the row will be 

 about straight when finished. Even if one tree is one or two inches 

 out of the way, it don't make much difference, but if you pay atten- 

 tion of your stakes and not the trees, your trees will line in every 

 angle in the orchard. I^ow in planting, we set the trees only about 

 as deep as they were in the nursery rows. I prefer to plant them 

 in the fall, even in our climate if we can. If we do not get them 

 planted in the fall, we plant them in the spring as early as we can 

 work the ground nicely. 



In selecting trees, a great many men make the mistake of buy- 

 ing from agents who buy second grade trees from nurseries. They 

 try to save all they can in buying and if they get a pretty decent 

 tree they will buy a number of trees for six cents rather than pay 

 twelve for a number one. Six cents is a very small amount for a 

 fruit tree that we expect to be worth a hundred dollars in future 

 years. When I am selecting trees to plant, I go through a nursery 

 and select the trees that I want, and if the nurseryman don't charge 

 more than double, I will be glad to pay it. I select good, thrifty 

 growing trees — all Spy if I can get them. 



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