20 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The President — This question of distance is a very important one 

 before we undertake to plant a commercial orchard. Those of us who 

 have bad experience have come to the canclusion that 25 feet apart is 

 distance enough from the fact that we don't expect to let the trees get 

 over 20 years old ; and in 20 years' growth they will not be large 

 enough to be of any material disadvantage to each other, if planted at 

 that distance, to hinder them in their growth, or to keep the sunlight 

 and air from them. There is no variety of apple that is profitable but 

 that the trees are short-lived trees necessarily. For if they have been 

 handled properly from the first, they have done their work by the time 

 they are twenty years old ; and, therefore, we have adopted the dis- 

 tance of 25 feet apart for our orchards, even in this good North Mis- 

 souri land, and experience tells us we are right. 



Mr. Murry — Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I had not 

 thought of speaking on this subject, but is a question that is being 

 discussed all over the State and people are not decided about the 

 proper distance to plant the trees in an orchard. In our rich Missouri 

 bottom land we differ. We plant the trees in our orchards £0 feet 

 apart ; and in other land they plant them 25 feet. I have an orchard 

 ten years old that is planted 30 feet, and another one planted 25 feet, 

 and the trees have never grown together. I did not grow them for 

 timber. I grow them so as to have enough fruit every year and to be 

 in bearing condition the next year. 1 had enough fruit from the 

 orchard to dwarf the trees, and they have never grown together. 

 Some other gentlemen down there planted their orchards about the 

 same number of feet apart, and planted them about the same time. 

 But they kept on pruning their trees, would prune off the fruit-bear- 

 ing spurs at first until they got their trees in the shape of an umbrella.. 

 They got their trees to cover the ground well — that is, if they did not 

 die. I had a man come to me and ask me why it was that their trees 

 did not bear fruit and grow like mine did. They said : "We got them 

 from you, and have planted them and given them good care and atten- 

 tion, and while our trees are larger than yours, you have a number of 

 bushels of apples on yours and we have not got a peck. We don't 

 see why our trees don't do as yours do." I said : "I don't know why 

 it is," and I invited them out to look at my orchard. When they got 

 there they said, "You have not pruned your trees like we have ours." 

 I said, "Yes you have pruned out the fruit bearing spurs and your 

 trees could not bear fruit, and so, of course, have grown and de- 

 veloped in size without bearing fruit; while I let mine bear fruit." 

 There is a great deal depending upon the way you manageyour orchard 

 for the first ten years. I think 1 can get more money and expend less 



