146 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and more vigorously than older ones. The age at which trees should be 

 preferred from the nursery are: apples, quinces and pears, 2 to 3 years; 

 peaches and SAveet cherries, 1 year; plums and sour cherries, 1 to 2 

 years. There is no material difference between budded and root grafted 

 trees, provided they are of the same size and vigor, except, perhaps, in 

 the North Peninsula, where it would be advisable to get root-grafted 

 apple trees, and secure stock of known hardiness. 



The use of dwarf trees is usually confined to pears. While more dwarf 

 trees can be planted upon an acre, and larger fruits can be produced, 

 still they have not found favor among commercial orchardists except in 

 a few sections where an extra high grade of fruit is desirable. Dwarf 

 trees are secured by propagating upon a slow growing root, but will not 

 remain dwarf unless severely headed-in every year. 



As soon as the trees are received from the nursery they should be 

 carefully heeled-in the ground, as near the field intended for the orchard 

 as possible, and preferably at the north side of a building or wood lot, 

 especially in the spring, in order to protect them from the sun, keep 

 them cool and retard their development. The trench should be dug 

 sufficiently deep to receive all the roots. The trees should be carefully 

 laid in, with their tops to the south, then fine, moist soil should be put 

 between the roots, so that no air spaces are left. If trees are to be left 

 heeled-in during the winter, care should be taken to remove all packing 

 material which could harbor mice, rats or rabbits, and then snow should 

 be kept over them as a protection from severe cold. 



SYSTEMS OF ORCHARD PLANTING. 



There are several systems of orchard planting, — the square system, 

 in which the trees are set at the corners of a square, making the rows 

 equidistant in both directions ; the quincunx system, which is the same 

 as the square system, except that a tree is planted in the center of the 

 square, and the hexagonal or equilateral triangular system, in which the 

 trees are equidistant apart in all directions. - 



Of these, the square system is the most commonly used. While it 

 does not permit of planting as many trees per acre as the other systems, 

 it has the advantage of being easily laid out, is the easiest to cultivate 

 and permits of systematic and definite thinning when the trees begin to 

 crowd each other. 



It is easily modified into the rectangular system, in which the rows 

 are farther apart in one direction than the other. 



The quincunx system permits of the planting of a great many more 

 trees per acre than the square system. The number per acre will be in- 

 creased from 45% in small orchards to 98% in large orchards. The ad- 

 vantages of this system are similar to those of the square system. The 

 popularity of both is due to the possibility of planting the trees quite 

 thickly, and of thinning with a fair degree of success at what ever dis- 

 tance the trees are set. In such cases early bearing and maturing trees 

 should be used as fillers and planted intermediately between the perma- 



