CHAPTER IV 

 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE ORCHARD 



ONE of the first problems in projecting the orchard is 

 to decide what kind of fruit to grow. In planting the 

 commercial orchard, the grower must escape from his old 

 idea of the home orchard, where everything was supposed 

 to grow, and be content with a few varieties of possibly 

 one kind of fruit. We hear on every hand that this is a 

 day of specialists, and the fruit-growing industry is no 

 exception. The scientific as well as the practical farmer 

 advises diversified farming, the rotation of crops being 

 conceded to be the simplest and most economical method 

 of maintaining the fertility of the soil; but in fruit-grow- 

 ing, where the ordinary rotation of crops is out of the 

 question, the orchardist has learned that it is more profit- 

 able to do one thing and to do it welL General farming 

 and fruit-growing do not go well together, and the pro- 

 miscuous growing of fruit harmonizes little better. How- 

 ever, the man who is capable and in position to handle 

 an apple, peach, and pear plantation probably reaps a 

 more uniform annual return than the one who stakes 

 all on one of the three. That few men are capable of 

 handling large orchards is a fact worth remembering, 

 and large orchard enterprises must be promoted cau- 



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