STARTING THE ORCHARD 3 1 



that the fruit grower does not have the intelh- 

 gence or the courage to do what is for his own 

 good. If a man fills his apple orchard with tem- 

 porary peach trees, there is no reason why he should 

 not give the apples the best culture of which he is 

 capable, and take as a gratuity whatever may come to 

 him from the peach trees. That is what they are 

 there for. 



Some sticklers on orchard culture have carried this 

 objection so far as to say that pears and early varieties 

 of apples should not be used for interplanting in 

 standard orchards of commercial apples. They say 

 that pears and early apples require peculiar methods 

 of cultivation. So far as pears are concerned, this is 

 largely true, since high fertilization and thorough 

 working of the soil is likely to induce blight. So far 

 as early apples are concerned, this distinction seems 

 to be rather finely drawn. There doubtless are a few 

 apple growers in America who have arrived at that 

 refinement of practice which leads them to apply one 

 method of treatment to Ben Davis, another to Grimes' 

 Golden and another to Red June, but these men are 

 single examples among thousands. 



Nevertheless, the objection to filling apple orchards 

 with other species of fruit, especially stone fruits, 

 should be given careful consideration; and in most 

 cases it is probably better practice to use apples for 

 fillers in apple orchards, if fillers are to be used at all. 



Another objection which has not been commonly 

 presented in this connection, but which seems to me 

 to have much more practical weight than either of the 

 others, is this — that the planting of fillers in an or- 

 chard interferes more or less seriously with the neces- 

 sary working of the ground, growing cover crops and 



