THE GILBERT SYSTEM OF ORCHARD PLANTING 



BY 

 RALPH D. GILBERT 



The advantages of this system of planting are that it allows 

 the land to be more fully occupied all the time than when the 

 trees are planted in squares, and that the thinning may be done 

 as needed, without spoiling the final symmetry of the orchard. 

 On the scale shown the original trees are planted so that each 

 is 20 feet distant from six others, thus forming a hexagon and 

 in the mature orchard each tree will be 40 feet distant from six 

 others. In square planting forty feet apart there are 27 trees to 

 the acre while in hexagonal planting there are 33 trees. If the 

 six additional trees produce three barrels of apples each it adds 

 18 barrels to the acre which at $3.00 per barrel means an increase 

 of $54.00 per acre per year; an item worth considering. It 

 makes provision for cross pollenization of two varieties, which 

 is very important, and is so arranged that the number of trees in 

 the permanent orchard may be equally divided between two 

 varieties, or if one variety proves to be much more profitable 

 than the other, the trees of that variety may predominate. No 

 man can say today, which variety would be the most profitable 

 to grow in 1930, and planted in this way, you have an option on 

 varieties until about 20 years after the orchard is planted. The 

 "fillers" may cost 30c. each and 20c. to set them, but in 8 years 

 they have paid for themselves, and the following 8 years they 

 should be very profitable. 



A setting board like the one shown on the following page 

 from bulletin #141, of the Vermont Agricultural Experiment 

 Station will be found convenient to use to make sure that the 

 tree when set, shall stand in exactly the place indicated by the 

 stake before the hole was dug. 



In staking out the orchard, the stakes for a certain number 

 of units should be stained or painted to correspond with colors on 

 circles of diagram to insure against confusion and misplacing of 

 varieties when setting the trees. It is also advisable to set all the 

 trees of one variety in a given area before bringing the other vari- 

 eties into the field, planting varieties indicated by red and blue 

 circles before planting green. 



