Age of Plants for Setting. 233 
one incurs in buying the best trees is a good in- 
vestment. In an acre of apple trees, the difference 
in cost of first-class over second-class trees will 
not be more than a dollar or two, but the differ- 
ence in results is often great. 
The ave at which plants should be bought must 
be governed by circumstances and by variety. There 
is a general tendency to buy trees too old rather 
than too young. When varieties are new and 
scarce, it may be economy to buy young stock. 
Some of the freer-growing apples and pears are 
large enough when two years old, if grown from 
buds; but these fruits are usually set at three 
years from the bud or graft. Dwarf pears may be 
set at two or three years, preferably at the former 
age. Quinces are set at two and three years. 
Peaches are set at one year from the bud. Strawber- 
ries are set only from new plants (that is, those which 
have not borne); gooseberries and currants prefera- 
bly from two-year stock, and raspberries and black- 
berries from stock not more than one season old. 
Dwarfs vs. standards.—Fruit-growers are always 
asking whether standard or dwarf trees are the 
better to plant, but the question is a personal 
one, and cannot be answered for another any more 
than the question can as to whether peaches are 
more desirable than plums. Dwarf apples and 
dwarf pears are of a different type of fruit-grow- 
ing from the standards, and the intending grower 
must weigh the evidence for and against as_ best 
he can. As a general thing, the standards are the 
