ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 19 



planted with thirty-five standard apple trees set thirty- 

 five feet apart each way, and these trees will cost, 

 roughly estimating retail prices at $12 a hundred, $4.20. 

 To plant an acre to dwarf apple trees, setting them 

 six feet apart each way, which is about as thick as 

 these trees should ever be planted, will require 1,210 

 trees. Estimating the retail price roughly at $15 a 

 hundred this would make the first cost $181.50 a 

 considerably greater initial investment in the orchard. 



2. The trees are shorter lived. This statement is 

 true for certain kinds of dwarf trees, but not for others. 

 Certain varieties of pears, for example, which do not 

 unite well with the quince root, naturally make short 

 lived trees. On the other hand other varieties of 

 pears appear to live as long and thrive fully as well 

 on quince roots as on pear roots. There is a common 

 belief, especially in England, that apples worked on 

 French paradise roots are apt to be short-lived. The 

 nurserymen who hold this belief contend, however, 

 that the so-called English Paradise, more properly 

 called Doucin, supplies a stock on which apples will 

 live to as great an age as on any other stock what- 

 ever. There is some evidence to show that vigorous 

 varieties of plums worked on Americana roots or on 

 dwarf sand cherry are shorter lived xhan the same 

 varieties on freer growing stocks. In many cases, 

 however, dwarf trees live as long as standards ; and 

 in almost all cases they live long enough. 



3. They require more care. This objection stands 

 particularly against the dwarf trees trained in special 

 and intricate forms. Such trees undoubtedly do re- 

 quire more careful attention, more frequent going- 



