LOCATING, LAYING OUT AND PLANTING PLUM ORCHARD. 127 
tion the great danger comes from setting the trees too shallow so 
they will root-kill. 
Mr. Jewett: Would it make any difference with native trees? 
Mr. Cook: You can put them in the ground any way the trees 
will stand up. 
Mr. Penning: I just want to say a word about setting plum 
trees a certain depth. I want the union with the graft four or five 
inches below the ground. In three or four years time the new 
stock strikes root, and the tree will be on its own roots if set at that 
depth in planting. 
Mr. Latham: Is there anything in the question of slope in set- 
ting out a plum orchard? . 
Mr. Cook: I prefer a sunny location. The most critical time 
with the plum is when the tree is in blossom. The trees will get 
into blossom before the last cold snap comes, and they will freeze. 
At my place it is a little too cold. I think they ought to be ina 
warm location, as nature intended. 
Mr. Penning: I would like to ask whether trees do best on 
their own roots or on a grafted stock. 
Mr. Cook: I don’t know that it makes any difference. A few 
years ago I got some that were on their own roots, fall-budded and 
grafted stock, and in a few years I could not tell the difference; 
I would as soon have one as the other. 
Mr. Harris: Ido not know that it makes any difference in the 
quality of the plums whether grafted on native stock or not, but in 
raising trees for the average farmer or the villager it is best to have 
them on their own roots, because if anything happens to the tree 
a sprout comes up of the same variety. By Mr. Cook’s method you 
virtually get them on their own roots. As far as possible the farmer 
and the villager should have them on their own roots. When a 
plum tree gets to be ten or twelve years old take the axe to it; the 
sprouts will give better plums than the original tree ever did. 
Mr. Rogers: In planting so deep would it be best to fill up the 
holes the same as in planting apple trees? 
Mr. Cook: I thought of that point when writing the paper, but 
I do not know that it makes much difference. The object in put- 
ting the tree down so deep is to kill those tender roots and give the 
tree a chance to set a new root. . 
Mr. Yahnke: Mr. Cook speaks of planting the trees in rows; 
would it not be better to plant the trees in groups where you set 
out only a half dozen? I have seen them planted in groups so they 
grew all to one head. 
Mr. Richardson: Some thirteen or fourteen years ago I set 
four De Soto trees. I set them sixteen feet apart, right in a row. 
They have done first rate. And I have them scattered right among 
my apple trees. They do not need any grouping. 
Mr. Cook: I thought of that point of having trees in groups. 
I think it is just as well to have them in groups, only it is not so 
convenient in cultivating. There is one thing I have found out in 
cultivating plum trees, if we go into the plum orchard with a plow 
it will reduce the crop very materially by cutting off the surface 
