FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 35 



When von set out vour trees you can cultivate and work tlieni and 

 get them started and yon will be a good ways ahead if you thoroughly 

 prepare the ground before the trees are set. Sometimes we get in a 

 hurry to set out the fruit and do our cultivating and preparatory work 

 afterwards. During the past seasons I have been setting out a peach 

 orchard on the site that I selected some twenty-five or thirty years ago. 

 True, I have not been preparing the ground all this time — I would have 

 set it out earlier but another man held the deed and I was unable to get 

 on to it. But I worked that ground for two years preparing it to set 

 out a peach orchard. This spring T \mt out the trees. 



If you have your space prepared there comes the question as to how 

 you will set the trees so as to get them in any kind of shape so that they 

 will look well after they w^ere set. I have generally made a practice of 

 plowing the ground and marking it, where it is comparatively level, with 

 the corn marker. If the trees were set twenty feet apart I w'ould mark 

 the ground both ways as I w^ould plant com. This year our land had 

 not been plowed and I wanted to set the trees twenty feet apart, so 

 I went to the woods and got two light poles and with another man staked 

 out one side of the orchard at right angles. I set stakes evci-y twenty 

 feet and with a x>ole measured from the corner and stood a small stake 

 where I wanted a tree all over the field, they stood in perfect line in 

 every direction. The man had a better view than I did. If the land 

 had been plowed I would have marked it with a marker. 



There is much more that might be said but perhapvS my two and one- 

 half hours is up and you are not all asleep so I will close. 



CARE OF A YOUNG ORCHARD. 



E. O. LADD. OLD MISSION. 



This topic w^ould naturally begin with a young orchard already set 

 out and take it along up to the bearing age, but so mucli of the success 

 in growing an orchard depends on previous conditions that I want to 

 go back a little and briefly speak of the location, preparation of the soil, 

 selection and planting of the trees. The influences of heredity and en- 

 vironment are as strong in plant as in animal life, hence the necessity 

 of getting trees from reliable sources propagated from stock having the 

 bearing habit, young, thrifty, well rooted and true to name. The most 

 critical period in the life of a fruit tree is from the time it is taken 

 from the nursery row until it is firmly established in the orchard. I 

 like to get the trees in the fall if possible and heel them in during the 

 winter and have them to set in the spring as soon as the soil can be got 

 into proper condition. The preparation of the soil is of great im- 

 portance. It should be under a good state of cultivation, being well sup- 

 plied with humus and available plant food. If the soil is not in proper 

 tilth better wait a year or two before planting the orchard and get it 

 into ideal condition. 



I believe it is important that the trees be Avell anchored to the soil 

 and to this end I would favor rather deep planting, somewhat deeper 



