The Planting of the Fruit-Farm 93 



the peach belt; whether you are under the true 

 peach sky. If so, plant peach trees. Every or- 

 chardist in every peach belt in the country is 

 confronted by the same question. While you are 

 waiting, another is reaping from two hundred to 

 six hundred dollars an acre from his peach orchards. 



A cherry tree, like any other fruit tree will live, 

 even flourish as a shade tree, where it will not 

 bring forth fruit. But there are more desirable 

 trees for shade than are cherry trees. The cherry 

 likes a well-drained soil, not too dry or heavy. 

 Like peach or plum it grows rapidly, and like all 

 fruit-trees perishes quickly in standing water, 

 either above or below ground. Like other fruit- 

 trees it makes its annual growth while the fruit is 

 growing. If left to itself, leaf and fruit will mature 

 together, the fruit clinging the longer. Here is 

 the clue to feeding the tree, — ^both for fruit and 

 for foliage. 



Sour cherries or sweet? Which shall you plant? 

 The sour are more regular in bearing; the sweet 

 carry the higher price but are less hardy. Thus 

 it may be said that while an orchard of sour cherries 

 bears every year, it bears heavily on alternate 

 years. Cherry trees, specially of sweet varieties, 

 are long-lived, long-jointed, brittle, coarse growing, 

 and susceptible to injury from wind, snow, and 

 ice-storms ; often break down badly in early spring 

 when the sap is starting, and are quite likely to 

 break, when winds are strong, under weight of 

 leaf and fruit. To escape such injuries the tree 



