126 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



four times that number in that system of growing. Don't 

 allow all the suckers to come up and grow during the first 

 season, as they sap the strength of the root and crowd each 

 other into spindling canes, and you would have to cut them 

 away the next season anyway. They are the same as a weed. 

 Allow as many young shoots to come up and grow as you 

 need for bearing next year and then cut the old ones out after 

 they have borne. 



We will pass on to the tree fruits. 



The cherry is the first, and I think in our section we have 

 neglected it. The sweet cherry has not been very successful 

 grown with us. I think the mistake made in planting them 

 is to place them too close together. The kind I am planting 

 I put 25 feet apart each way for the Montmorency. The 

 English Morello can be planted closer together. It is better 

 to cultivate the land the first two or three years. In my 

 orchards I grow small fruit in connection with them for the 

 first few years. There is much that can be said in favor of 

 sod mulch methods and cover crops and other methods. You 

 cannot lay down any hard or fast rules in these matters. Ask 

 yourself what the trees need and then supply those needs by 

 the best methods you can use under your conditions. In my 

 case the land is level and rich and valuable and so I grow 

 small fruits or potatoes or anything I wish to grow to make it 

 valuable. My methods have been to grow strawberries or 

 raspberries and currants for a number of years, but I quit 

 growing raspberries, finding the currant an ideal crop to 

 grow in a young orchard ; the shade of the trees seems to 

 benefit the currants. 



Our sour cherries are the Early Richmond and the ]\Iont- 

 morency. I believe that is a fruit we don't grow half enough 

 of. I am satisfied if there were three or four times as many 

 cherries put on the market as at present, at a little lower price 

 within reach of all classes, they would be taken up without 

 any particular glut, and if not by individual buyers, then by 

 the factories for canning and for preparing syrups and 

 flavorings. 



