258 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



plants on the ground as we can furnish sunshine for and at the same 

 time cultivate and gather the fruit. To set them any further apart is a 

 waste of land, and if the ground is not very rich they will not stool up 

 enough. My favorite way, and one involving less labor, is to grow them 

 in a hedge row. The rows are set thirty to thirty-six inches apart and 

 plants twenty-four to thirty inches in the row. The first runners are 

 thrown around directly in line and allowed to root so the plants will 

 stand about ten inches apart when all the others are chipped off. 



For this purpose I used the Planet Jr., rolling runner cutter, which 

 can be attached to a cultivator or to a garden wheel hoe. It is the natural 

 instinct of the plant to spread its runners out where each new plant 

 will be in full sunshine, and so a large majority will be seen trying to 

 cross the row, so that this wheel readily cuts them all off. In this way 

 the alleys furnish abundant root pasturage and sunshine finds every leaf. 

 We are able to cultivate nearly the entire surface so as to destroy weeds 

 and maintain the dust mulch. In the fall we mulch heavily between 

 rows with any kind of straw we can buy cheap and leave it until after 

 berries are picked. It is then stirred up and burned off to destroy in- 

 sects and fungi. 



Another great advantage of this method is that the berries are all 

 large and even in size, are easily picked, look very fine in the quart 

 boxes and command a ready sale at the highest price. If the ground was 

 not rich enough to grow in any except matted rows I would not plant any 

 at all but sow the ground to cow peas, then plow under and apply plenty 

 of stable manure. In the meantime I would prepare a small propagating 

 bed and grow my own plants for setting the following year. There is no 

 question but the country is on the eve of great prosperity. Labor will 

 be fully employed and transportation companies are providing better con- 

 ditions for distribution in carload lots. Under these conditions the con- 

 sumption of fruit will be something enormous and prices must rule high, 

 but to gather the financial harvest we must go at it right. 



New Jersey. C. A. UMOSELLE, 



In Fruit Grower. 



PRUNING THE ORCHARD. 



HOW TO PRUNE A COMMERCIAL ORCHARD— THE FIRST TWO 

 YEARS' WORK THE MOST IMPORTANT. 



In pruning our commercial orchards of thirty-six thousand trees, lo- 

 cated near Nampa, Idaho, we endeavor to develop some fruit the fourth 

 year and increase the amount the fifth season. Trees should yield from 

 two to six boxes to the tree the sixth season. We find our cultivation of 

 sixteen times each season sufllciently effective to grow the trees with 

 such vigor and rapidity as to- be strong enough the sixth year to yield a 

 profitable crop. 



In pruning the orchard the first two years are the most important. 

 The major portion of our western commercial apple orchards are planted 



