ORCHARD AX J) VIXETARB. 119 



Prult GroTving Jottings. — "Line upon line, precept upon precept,"' 

 says a Southern fruit gi-ower, must be written regarding the proper manner 

 of planting out fruit trees; not that there exists a great diversity of opinion, 

 but because so little heed is paid to the plain teachings of nature and com- 

 mon sense. " The way father or grandfather did it " is authority for the ma- 

 jority, and they seek no further knowledge. 



Now the world moves, and many new and valuable methods have been 

 devised which insure the desired kind and quality of fruit, hasten maturity 

 and prevent decay. The non-progressive orchardist sells his fruit for a 

 nominal figure, whenever he has any to sell, which is not often, and is con- 

 tinuaUy complaining because his orchard " doesn't pay." It does pay for 

 all the labor bestowed upon it, but it will not pay for what it does not 

 receive. 



Any kind of a fruit tree is an enormous feeder if it produces any amount 

 of friiit. Who can reasonably expect to receive ban el upon barrel from any 

 given tree, year after year, when nothing is fed to it ? As well might the 

 ovNTier expect to work a week on the memory of a Sunday dinner. 



Trees should be fed, therefore, and liberally, too, if large crops of fine 

 fruit are expected from them. 



The old-fashioned way of crowding trees in the space devoted to orchard 

 purposes is still persisted in, notwithstanding the teachings of nature to the 

 contrary. Trees are crowded in the rows like lodgers in a tenement house, 

 and the results are as disastrous in one case as in the other. Trees, like 

 human beings, need air and light. They must have these, or their lives do 

 not reach three score years and ten. Fruit iriU not grow in the shade, and it 

 is beyond the power of any man to cause it to do so. 



'Tis true, when trees are young, a proper space seems unreasonably 

 ii-ge — there seems to be a waste, but there really is none. It is question- 

 able if planting small crops, like strawberries, melons, tomatoes, etc., is ad- 

 visable, even in the earlier stages of growth, and it certainly is not unless a 

 Uberal quantity of some proper fertilizer is applied. As the tree enlarges 

 and reaches out its arm-like branches, it asks for more food; it also asks 

 that God's sunlight may be permitted to kiss it from topmost branch to root, 

 and unless this request is granted it shoots skyward, bearing no fruit except 

 upon its highest branches, and becomes liable to be attacked by numerous 

 diseases. • 



^Tio has not noticed that a tree, standing solitary and alone, ahcays 

 bears a liberal quantity of fruit ? Who has not noticed that such trees are 

 invariably healthy ? Who has not remarked that if the entire orchard was 

 like this or that solitary tree, there would be money in fruit growing ? Must 

 so plain a lesson be unheeded ? Can we not leam so simple a lesson with- 

 out paying the immense price we do for tuition ? The number of trees upon 

 a given area does not determine the value of the orchard. If they are in ex- 

 cess of the proper number, they certainly are, comparatively, of little worth. 



One argument used by those who favor close planting is that the shade 

 hereby produced kills the grass and weeds which would steal the life-blood 

 uf the tree. This argument is bom of pure laziness, and if carried into 

 efifect, as it too often is, the tree is deprived of its means of thrift, that its 

 loafing owner may not blister his hands or bum his neck in his efforts to 

 keep grass and weeds from choking his trees. 



We have often walked through the orange groves on the lower Mississippi 

 and been amazed at the imbeciUtj^ so extensively displayed. A dense foreet 

 instead of au orchard, dead limbs and clinging moss, close thorny tops witk 



