AN IMPROVED PLAN OF ORCHARDING. 151 



Mr. Somerville: They were set eighteen feet apart and then 

 the joints were broken, and they are so close together now that 

 the sun hardly ever gets through the foliage to the ground ex- 

 cept in some places. You remember it was in 1862 that those 

 trees were set out, and they are very large now, and the limbs 

 are interworked to such a degree that the sun can hardly get 

 through. 



Mr. Harris: A good many years ago I took some stock in 

 the State Horticultural Society, and there was an idea sprung 

 here that close planting was just the thing. I bought some 

 Dachess and other trees of my friend Jewett and set them out 

 on that plan. They were planted from fifteen to eighteen feet 

 apart, and for a while they bore first rate, but for five or ten 

 years past they have not averaged their first cost, and a few 

 days ago I told the boys to cut them down and saw them up 

 into stove wood. I have one Duchess that stood twenty-four 

 or twenty-five rods away from the others, and for the last four 

 years it has borne more and better fruit than all the rest; and 

 I believe if a man wants to have a good orchard and plenty 

 of fruit he had better set his trees far enough apart in the first 

 place. If a man would plant trees a little further apart than 

 Mr. Patten recommended I think it would be a paying thing. 



Mr. Dartt: I think friend Harris is just a little bit off as 

 usual. The trees should be a good deal closer together and 

 then girdled. (Laughter). 



Mr. Dunlap: If anyone in Illinois should endeavor to follow 

 the recommendations as laid down in the paper just read, we 

 would have a commission appointed to inquire into his sanity. 

 (Laughter). We would think the nurseryman who would make 

 such a recommendation now was undertaking to sell trees by 

 misrepresentation and endeavoring to get the confidence of 

 people in order to sell his nursery stock. I think the condi- 

 tions here are different. We think we must plant trees far 

 enough apart so as to have sufficient room for cultivation and 

 allow the trees room enough for growth, and we do not do as 

 our friend on the left here does, have the ground entirely 

 shaded by the trees and no chance to pick the fruit. We have 

 trees that were planted in 1860 when this close planting was in 

 vogue, and it is almost impossible to reach the fruit with a 

 twenty-four foot ladder, and the lower limbs are all dead, 

 and the fruit is just beyond reach. We consider that the man 

 who sets his trees 80 x 30 or 33 feet apart is the most sen- 



