CHAPTER VIII 

 INTER-PLANTED CROPS 



The term "inter-planted crop" is here used in its broadest 

 sense and is intended to include any crop that is inter- 

 planted between peach trees for any purpose whatsoever. 

 Peach trees may be themselves an inter-planted crop since 

 they are used as "fillers" frequently in apple orchards. 



The term is more commonly used in a restricted sense 

 to mean a crop grown between the trees before they come 

 into bearing, expressly for the money return, or its equiva- 

 lent, which the crop is expected to make. In effect it is a 

 means of reducing the cost of maintaining the orchard dur- 

 ing the non-productive period of its existence. However, 

 such a crop may serve a double purpose, yielding not only a 

 financial return, but also accomplishing other important 

 results ordinarily secured by planting certain crops with the 

 improvement of conditions definitely in view. It follows, 

 therefore, that there is no specific line of differentiation be- 

 tween an "inter-planted crop" in its restricted money-crop 

 sense and one planted solely as an orchard-improvement 

 factor. The terms "filler-crop" or "secondary-crop" seem 

 to convey specific meaning in this connection, and will be 

 used here to denote a crop that is "filled in" between the 

 trees while they are small and during the years when they 

 do not require the entire space, and are grown for the express 



111 



