PRINCIPLES OF GOOD PLANTING 



ginia and Pennsylvania lands are high and grow the best qual- 

 ity of fruit; New England is farther north and claims superior 

 flavor and keeping qualities; Oregon is far west and claims 

 superior color. Whether much or little is in these claims, what 

 is lost in one place is balanced by a gain in another place. So, 

 plant your trees where you can do it best. 



Avoid setting trees too close together. They feed over a 

 wide area if they have the opportunity, and they are the better 

 for it. Our plan is to set three peach trees to one standard ap- 

 ple. Where peach trees are used as fillers, we get from fifty to 

 two hundred trees on an acre, depending on many things. With 

 apples you will get more cash returns from thirty trees on an 

 acre, in the East, than from sixty on an acre. Some varieties, 

 however, are naturally smaller growers than others, and can 

 be planted closer; also the section has something to do with 

 it. For instance, trees grow bigger in Pennsylvania or Delaware 

 than in Michigan or the West. The system of pruning you are 

 going to adopt, as well as the price of land, has something to 

 do with the distance the trees should be apart. Leave plenty 

 of room for spraying, cultivating, driving about with wagons, 

 etc. Keep the trees far enough away from boundary fences, 

 and never plant them closer than forty feet (one hundred 

 feet is better) to thick woods or an evergreen windbreak. 

 Privet needs only twenty feet, and in most sections is as good 

 as any known plant for windbreaks. Fillers, of course, alter the 

 distances given, as they merely occupy the ground before the 

 premanent trees get big enough. The following gives the 

 shortest distances at which trees should be set: 



Apple trees need fifty, forty, or thirty feet between one 

 another, depending on various conditions named above (dwarfs 

 ten to fifteen); pears twenty, twenty-five or thirty; quinces 

 fifteen to eighteen; peaches thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one 

 to twenty-five feet; plums fifteen, twenty to twenty-five feet; 

 sour cherries the same as peaches, and sweet cherries the same 

 as pears (in some sections forty to fifty feet); grapes should be 

 put six by eight feet to eight by ten feet; strawberries from 

 eighteen inches each way to one by four feet; raspberries from 

 three by six to five by eight feet; and blackberries from four 

 by seven to six by nine feet. 



Fillers always are to be recommended to careful growers. 

 If you think you will not use your trees right while they are 

 growing, or that you will lack the determination to cut out 

 the nicely bearing fillers when they are about twelve years 

 old, do not plant fillers, for these things must be done. But 

 no business farmer will think of going to the expense of growing 

 a first-class apple or pear orchard without planting early-bear- 

 ing sorts of these same fruits, or of peaches or strawberries, 

 between his permanent trees. To use fillers makes the orchard 

 a paying investment considering it on a five- to eight-year 

 basis; while without them you will have to take fifteen years, 

 or even longer, as the time in which you are "starting" your 

 future orchard, or before you get back the entire cost and be- 

 gin to see a yearly surplus. 



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