Inter-Planted Crops 115 



any measure shade or interfere with the development of 

 the trees. This principle applies without regard to what is 

 used as a filler-crop. 



The character of the filler-crop is of fundamental impor- 

 tance. The requirements of peach trees as to tillage have 

 been discussed. Obviously the tillage requirements of the 

 secondary-crop should be similar to those of peaches. The 

 crop also should be selected with regard to its market- 

 ability. Small grains such as wheat should never be grown 

 except as a cover- or green-manure crop to be plowed under 

 in early spring. If grown to maturity, the small grains 

 not only prevent tillage during the most important period 

 for that operation, but they take large quantities of soil- 

 moisture which ordinarily are needed by the trees. 



Most hoed crops can be used for fillers. Beans, peas, 

 tomatoes, cabbages, muskmelons, and other vegetables of 

 like tillage requirements, also corn if properly handled, may 

 be selected, depending on their marketability in the place 

 where grown. Irish potatoes are used in some sections, but 

 as a rule only where early maturity is insured. They are 

 not desirable on general principles in the North or in other 

 regions where late digging is made necessary by late maturity. 

 The digging under some conditions might be equivalent to 

 a late cultivation, the latter having a tendency to stimulate 

 an unduly late growth of the trees. 



AVhile small-fruits such as raspberries and blackberries 

 are sometimes grown in this way, it is inadvisable even 

 though they require good tillage. The competition for 

 soil-moisture is entirely too strong, often, for the satisfactory 

 growth of the trees. Strawberries are objectionable in that 

 they ordinarily are not cultivated much, if any, in the spring 

 until after the fruit is harvested and this is when the trees 



