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I believe in setting out orchard trees with the expectation 

 of getting the best results, and so growing them as to get the 

 best results, in six to eight years. With the Spy you could 

 get a result in eight years. You would get a certain amount 

 of fruit from Baldwins in eight years, and some people will 

 get results; but with such varieties as the Mcintosh, the 

 Wealthy, the Duchess and the Hubbardston, and quite a num- 

 ber of others, you can get profitable results in from five to 

 seven years. To do that, in the first four years I should 

 grow those trees fast, but not so fast as to make sappy growth. 

 I should use a lot of nitrogen if the soil wasn't such as to con- 

 tain it ; but in the fourth or fifth year I should substitute for 

 the nitrogen heavy basic slag or potash, or some such element. 

 With Mcintosh, Wealthy, Duchess and Hubbardston, I 

 should plan to get profitable crops within five years. I am 

 making those varieties do that. 



Mr. J. A. Williams. Would you recommend setting out 

 peach trees in between apple trees in a young orchard, thus 

 getting a growth of peaches before the apples come into bear- 

 ing ? 



Mr. Dkew. a great many successful orchard men are do- 

 ing that, and still there is an element of danger in it. As a 

 general rule, you can get results from peaches in three or 

 four years, and a peach tree spreads out, and generally when 

 anybody sees the money coming in from peaches — and cer- 

 tainly it is good money when it comes in — he thinks he can 

 keep the trees two or three years longer, and be so much 

 richer, and that is a detriment to the apple trees. As a rule, 

 if I were planting by the filler system I should use a variety 

 of apples like the Baldwin or Greening, and then plant in the 

 filler of Mcintosh, Wealthy, Duchess or Yellow Transparent, 

 or something of that class. The Duchess makes a good filler. 



Mr. Williams. What do you advise for a distance in set- 

 ting out an orchard of that kind ? 



Mr. Drew. I should set my Baldwins 50 feet apart in 

 some soils, — in most soils from 40 to 45 feet apart — and 

 interplant half that space each way with fillers. In the 

 northern sections of New Hampshire and Maine, where the 



