-l6o THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



gets through, because I don't beheve anybody can tell him 

 how to harvest a crop — he must learn by experience. 



I will first speak of starting an orchard. The best way 

 in my experience (the way I would start an orchard) would 

 be to set the trees quite near together. A few years ago 

 I adopted the plan of planting something like 200 trees to 

 the acre, and I would mark out my land and set my trees 

 twenty feet apart, then diagonally on every row, I would set 

 another tree, and that would make 215 trees to the acre. In 

 cultivating those trees there are a good many difficulties to en- 

 counter; it is very hard work to cultivate those trees if they 

 are set out that way. Now, if it is planned to raise two or 

 three crops between the trees while you are growing your 

 orchard, it is a very poor plan; it is much better to plant 

 your rows twenty feet apart, and your trees ten feet apart, and 

 then cut out every other tree when they commence to crowd. 

 This means devoting the entire land to peaches. In regard 

 to the fertilizing, in growing your trees up to the fruiting 

 period, I find often the greatest danger is in growing them 

 too fast, rather than not growing them fast enough. I believe 

 in pruning every year ; I believe that all the leading limbs 

 should be cut, perhaps a half of the preceding year's growth, 

 and of course the amount of pruning should be regulated by 

 the growth the tree has made. The fertilizing problem is one 

 of the greatest problems that comes up before the peach grower, 

 and I must confess I have made some great blunders myself 

 in the business, and I think that perhaps we all learn more 

 by our mistakes than by our successes, but I will say here in 

 regard to fertilizing that so much depends on the weather, 

 that with the best of judgment the peach grower often makes 

 a mistake, and gets left on his crop. His crop will rot. If 

 he is growing the fruit very large, and his trees are too thrifty, 

 the fruit may be off color on account of the dense foliage, and 

 if the weather is at all wet during the ripening period, he is in 

 trouble surely, because his fruit will be full of water, and 

 he can't ship it successfully, and he will have to pick it very 

 green, off color ; and if he waits until it is a little soft, he 

 doesn't realize as much, if he has to ship it a distance, but if 

 he uses a market near bv, he doesn't have that difficulty. The 



