I38 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. J. S. Parks: It seems to me the theory of setting trees as 

 recommended here is on one side and practice is on the other. Now , 

 I want to recommend another theory. Why not set trees four feet 

 apart each way, and you will get lots of apples depending upon the 

 "survival of the fittest." I have had lots of apples. (Laughter.) 



Mr. Van Ness: I have seen orchards in Minnesota 15x20 feet 

 apart, and they told me the trees were planted too close together. 

 It was impossible to drive through with a team after they had made 

 some growth, and man}- people are going to set them 30x40. That 

 is the distance recommended by the man who sold me trees. 



Mr. J. P. Andrews: I just want to say that I set an orchard in 

 1878 and put them fourteen feet apart. The Duchess and a number 

 of other varieties are entirely too thick, and the orchard I planted 

 three years ago I set 15x24 feet, and if I had to plant them again 

 I believe I would widen them a little more. 



Mr. A. J. Philips (Wis.): I set everything too thick, forest trees 

 and everything else. Mr. Blair likes a distance of about twenty- 

 one feet each way. Mine are set 28x16, and my Wolf River, Wal- 

 bridge and Duchess were set twenty-eight feet apart. I set a man in 

 there mowing, and he could not get through with the mower. 

 Those trees were twenty-eight feet apart, and yet you could not 

 drive a team between them. 



Mr. C. E. Older: Mr. Patten has a scheme for setting them out 

 and then breaking joints as it were. He sets the rows 24 feet apart 

 and then sets rows between, and then leaves an open wide space 

 for circulation. 



Mr. H. Y. Poore: When I first commenced to plant forest trees 

 on the prairie the old tree claim law called for a distance of 8x12 ft. 

 and then later extended that four feet. From what I have observed 

 for twenty-four years and from my experience I think I should put 

 them about 8x12 ft. The first trees I planted I placed 20x12 ft., and 

 now there are two trees left that are twenty feet apart. I think 

 8x12 ft. is plenty far enough apart. Until you can adopt some 

 method of protection do not speak of thirty-three feet on the prai- 

 rie. There is only one orchard in the county successful, and those 

 trees are set 16x20 ft. and the man is fortunate enough to be in 

 such a situation that the wind cannot strike from the southwest. 

 There is a grove right by his house about twenty rods from the or- 

 chard, and he has had from eighty to a hundred bushels of apples 

 the last four years; but how long it will last I do not know. 



Mr. Paul Burtzlaff: I have noticed that some of these apple 

 growers pretend to cut out their trees when they become too thick, 

 but they don't. They go out and look at the tree and think it is a 

 very nice tree, too bad to cut it out; they will wait just another year, 

 and then they will cut it out. The tree looks just as nice the next 

 year, bears a good crop of apples, and when they go out with the 

 ax they say they will wait another year; and so it goes; but if they 

 did cut out everv other one the trees that were left would be ruined. 

 Mr. W. J. Tingley: I plant my trees 18 feet 4 inches apart, put 

 them just five links apart, and set the rows east and west. 



