38 THE AMERICAN APPLE ORCHARD 



In conclusion, the writer feels compelled to say that 

 he would not recommend the practice of double plant- 

 ing to everyone. There are many men — men who would 

 be fairly successful in following some simpler method 

 — who are sure to fail under the difficulties involved in 

 managing two orchards on the same ground. It must 

 be clearly understood, too, that double planting in- 

 volves a complete readjustment of the entire system of 

 fruit growing, pruning, fertilizing, cultivating and 

 all. Anyone who interplants an orchard and then 

 adheres to the methods of pruning and cultivation 

 suited to the open style of planting is foredoomed to 

 failure. Yet it is such failures as these which have 

 unjustly brought double planting into a certain de- 

 gree of disrepute. 



PREPARATION FOR PLANTING 



The nursery tree requires some special preparation 

 immediately before it is put into the ground. This 

 refers, of course, to pruning. Some growers advise 

 that trees be planted first and suitably cut back im- 

 mediately afterward ; but this is certainly not the best 

 practice. It is easier to prune nursery trees with a 

 heavy pair of shears just before they are planted than 

 it is to walk all over a twenty-acre field to prune them 

 after they are set out. 



It has usually been accepted as a horticultural 

 axiom that an extensive, symmetrical and well rami- 

 fied root system is always desirable or even necessary. 

 In recent years this belief has been strongly chal- 

 lenged, especially by the so-called Stringfellow system. 

 Mr. Stringfellow's scheme, succinctly stated, is to cut 

 off all the side roots entirely and to shorten the tap 



