STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 41 



way ever have or ever will pay for themselves and the cost of plant- 

 ing, no matter how quick the demand or how high the price? Our 

 preference would be to have the land well plowed, where it is practi- 

 cable, a year previous to the time of setting the trees, the soil 

 appears to get in a finer condition and the roots take hold more 

 readily and we get quite a growth the first year, by giving the land 

 a liberal supply of dressing. Other crops may be raised on the land 

 to good advantage even to the extent of paying all the bills. With 

 us potatoes is a good crop for the first year after the trees are set, 

 then perhaps corn not planted too thick or very near the trees, it is 

 preferable to rotate the crops not planting the same crop two years 

 in succession, to be continued from eight to ten years, when if 

 proper care has been taken, you will have an orchard that will begin 

 to show, and if the whole matter has been properly handled will 

 only have cost the first outlay for trees and the setting. 



The distance that trees should be set apart is a matter of consider- 

 able importance, thirty leet appearing to be the better distance, all 

 things considered. We have in mind an orchard that has been set 

 some eighteen years, the trees being forty feet apart and they are 

 not neighbors yet, and the prospect is that they never will be. That 

 appears to be the extreme in that direction. There is also another 

 orchard in the same town where the trees are 16| feet apart, have 

 been set seven years and they already have the appearance of being 

 crowded, it being impossible to work a team among them, thereby 

 making it very expensive to give it the care it should have to make 

 it a thrifty orchard and paying investment. 



Perhaps the subject of pruning next to that of fertilization is the 

 most neglected and should receive vastly more care than is now 

 given to it. In the first place the head of the tree should be 

 properly formed, and where nursery stock is bought, that part has 

 already been attended to and in such a manner that the tree is a 

 perfect little image and looks in the most perfect proportion When 

 the tree is properly set the trunk or body of the iree is about two 

 and a half feet up to the limbs, then the branches come out just 

 Tight for a small tree, perhaps four or five branches coming out 

 from the main stock in as many inches of space and at the end of 

 six or seven years it begins to dawn upon the planter that the limbs 

 of his trees are too low, appearing to be very near the ground, 

 making it impossible to get near them with a team and very nearly 

 so for the man himself ; and the branches have the appearance of 



