CULTIVATION OF THE COMMERCIAL ORCHARD. 163 



air spaces are placed between the grains of earth. This prevents the 

 moisture from going" through easily, as a large per cent of the cap- 

 illary attraction has been destroyed, and the water cannot leap the 

 air spaces thus created. This, in a few words, is the philosophy of 

 cultivation as applied to the saving of the soil's moisture. 



It is not within the province of this paper to call attention 

 except in a general sense to the importance of cultivation in the 

 commercial orchard. That has already been done emphatically 

 many times. I will, therefore, not do more than to give a few diary 

 notes on the subject that have come to my notice in the experimental 

 orchards of the Jewell Nursery Co., at Lake City, Minn. Here, 

 with nearly 5,000 orchard trees, both apple and plum, have been 

 tested about all the general methods of cultivation advocated, and 

 the present system of orchard cultivation, which I will outline, is 

 in our estimation the best and most prolific of good results. 



Distance to Plant Orchard Trees. In our Lake City orchards 

 we are finding that in our first orchard plantings we made the 

 common error of putting the trees too close together. In the early 

 days of horticulture in this state the comparatively small size which 

 the average apple tree eventually attained led us to believe that 

 we should plant them close together. 



Our first orchard was planted in rows 14 feet apart, with the 

 trees 12 feet apart in the row. Now that we are awake to the 

 necessity of cultivating this orchard, we are confronted by a grave 

 difficulty in lack of space to run the cultivator. We discovered the 

 possibility of this difficulty several years ago, and as a result put 

 in our next large planting 16 feet apart each way. Then followed 

 another 18 feet apart, and now we have by our added experience 

 come to believe that 20 feet is none too far apart for a commercial 

 orchard in Minnesota. In the small garden, where cultivation may 

 be practiced on a diminutive scale, this is of course not necessary, 

 as the trees themselves do not require that amount of ground. 



Trimming and Pruning. A word might be said in regard to 

 •keeping the trees in proper shape to permit of easy cultivation. 

 Orchard trees should be watched every year and not allowed to 

 sprawl out in a decided manner in any one direction. While we 

 advocate low branching, we at all times aim to keep a uniform head 

 by balancing the branches on one side with complementary branches 

 on the other. A little attention given to this question each season 

 will save many steps later on, for you can now easily cut off 

 branches with a pocket knife that will sometime require a saw if 

 allowed to remain. 



