218 Planting the Cherry. 
distance which cherries should be set apart is a disputed point 
among planters. Mr. Hector, drawing the suggestion from his 
niammoth trees, would plant them eighty feet apart on such soil 
as his, and thinks forty feet near enough on any good soil. This 
is the extreme of all distances which have been named, and 
looks to the needs of the trees a generation ahead. This is 
farther in the future than most growers care to calculate, and 
would prefer to let the coming generation cut out some of the 
trees if necessary. Still trees should not be set too close. When 
planted twenty feet apart the trees have interlaced their branches 
when sixteen years old. and the spaces between the rows have 
been covered in like colonnades. In the Haywards region the 
branches of twelve-year-old trees set twenty-eight feet apart have 
nearly reached each other, though continually cut back. Much 
depends in the matter of distance upon the manner of handling 
the trees. The trees can be grown much nearer together by 
continuous pruning than where the usual way of cutting back 
for the first few years and letting the tree take its natural growth 
after that, is followed. James E. Gedney, of Mesa Grande, 
San Diego County, practises close planting and cutting back. 
He says:— 
I plant my trees twenty feet apart each way. My method is to plant 
thus closely and then keep my trees low, by cutting back every year; this 
facilitates gathering the fruit very much. I prefer this way to setting the 
trees farther apart and allowing them to attain too great a height. By the 
former method I secure fully as good, if not better, results per acre, to say 
nothing of the difference in gathering the fruit. Another advantage in 
keeping the trees headed low is that the wind does not affect them nearly 
as much as it does tall trees. 
Thus it appears that one may fix his distance in planting 
according to the method of pruning he proposes to follow, re- 
membering, however, that the cherry is naturally a large tree, 
and most old orchards are now overcrowded. 
As with other trees, orchard planters prefer trees with one 
year’s growth on the bud in the nursery, because they usually 
get, then, a straight switch with well-developed buds all the way 
down, and the head can be formed as desired. For garden 
planting, older trees, properly pruned in the nursery, can be used 
to advantage. 
PRUNING THE CHERRY. 
All our best growers agree in the advantage of a low head 
for the cherry, and all aim to have the trunks from the ground 
up to the limbs literally covered all around with leaves, which 
completely shelter the bark from the rays of the sun. In plant- 
ing, therefore, the side buds are carefully preserved—not to be 
grown into branches, but to be cut or pinched back when they 
have come out a few inches, leaving just growth enough to clothe 
