LAYING OUT THE COMMERCIAL ORCHARD. I4I 



ters. I am an advocate of reasonably deep setting. I believe in get- 

 ting trees on their own roots as far as possible. 



Mr. Blair : I would make one suggestion, and that is that any 

 method that will hold the snow in the orchard will prove a very 

 good remedy against root-killing. I never knew trees to root- 

 kill where the snow could be held in the orchard. Any method by 

 which we can hold the snow will help to solve the problem. 



Mr. Older : In setting my own orchard a number of years ago 

 I set my trees twenty feet apart each way. Mr. Somerville came to 

 look at my orchard, and he admired everything very much, but he 

 said I could raise twice as many apples as I did by putting in just as 

 many rows but breaking joints. I did so, but that was a total fail- 

 ure.' The other trees had a good start, and we had trouble in get- 

 ting through, and I dropped that plan. The last orchard we planted 

 we set the rows north and south. The conditions were such we 

 could not set them any other way very well, so we set them ten feet 

 apart in the row and the rows thirty feet apart, and we planted a 

 short lived tree and every alternate one a longer lived tree. The 

 plan Mr. Patten follows "is twenty-four feet apart and then plant 

 between and leave a wide open space for some other crop. It is a 

 nice orchard ; it is easy to cultivate and yields a big crop. 



Mr. Gibbs: Those steep hill sides and undulations are very 

 nice places to set out to apple trees, but the wash of the soil is a 

 very serious matter. I have avoided that difficulty in two different 

 places in this way. In one I had an orchard on a steep hillside, and 

 I dug in and levelled off a space for the tree with a little slope to 

 the rear. I could not cultivate the hillside, and I let the space grow 

 and mowed off the weeds, but I kept that little space back of the 

 trees cultivated. Where I am now I have a smaller number of trees, 

 and they have plenty of rock about them, and there I am terracing 

 the ground the same as they do in Europe for their grapes. It is a 

 good, deal of work, but we must be patient with our trees and adapt 

 our methods to the situation. 



Mr. O. F. Brand: The point suggested by Mr. Wedge and Mr. 

 Gibbs of saving the soil from washing is a very material one. We 

 have got to protect our soil ; we have got to save our surface soil. 

 The southern and eastern states have been prodigal in that matter ; 

 they have allowed their soils to wash away until their farms are im- 

 poverished. I have noticed that a heavy rain will wash a large 

 amount of soil away. We must cultivate our orchards in such a 

 manner as to prevent that. I do not know of any better way than 

 our friend Blair suggested and is following, and that is in pasturing 

 his hogs in the orchard. I am following that plan myself. We get 

 a pretty good crop of apples without any further cultivation. I 

 have frequently noticed in photographs of different trees, and have 

 also noticed it not only on my own ground but in the orchards of 

 other people, that the trees that produce the most fruit are invari- 

 ably on the outside or end of the row or where there are vacancies 

 in the row. 



