OcToBER, 1906 
ground—sides, ends and middle—without 
getting tangled up in a lot of irregular or 
crowded rows or fancy borders. The largest 
item in the expense of a fruit garden is the 
cost of keeping it well tilled. Furthermore, 
the need of tillage is most pressing at just the 
time of year when most people are the busiest. 
The man who can afford to spend something 
more than this upon his garden may wish to 
put into it flower borders, walks, drives, 
fountains, and other accessories, but the 
owner of a business fruit garden should keep 
out of his plans all these impediments to eco- 
nomical culture. 
Unless one has an abundance of space, and 
money to spend upon appearance, it is not 
necessary to provide for walks or drives in the 
average fruit garden. Temporary walks 
which answer every purpose may be made 
between rows of trees, bushes, or vines. 
DOUBLE PLANTING NOT USUALLY DESI- 
RABLE 
Double planting, the growing of more than 
one kind of fruit on the same land at the same 
time, is a common source of trouble. Often 
we see apples, with peaches between the rows, 
or currants with strawberries, etc. One ob- 
jection to double planting is that different 
fruits require different treatment as regards 
tillage, pruning, etc., and it is an inconve- 
nience in caring for them to have them mixed. 
Another and more serious objection to double 
planting, as usually practised, is that the 
several fruits, are crowded so that none have 
room to do their best. Usually the home 
fruit grower does not realize that when he 
plants several kinds of fruit thickly upon the 
same place, he is placing a heavy tax on the 
land and ought to fertilize much more heavily 
than he would for one crop only. Double 
planting should be practised only in the small 
city or suburban fruit gardens. When sev- 
eral fruits are crowded on the same area the 
amount of fruit produced and the degree of 
satisfaction derived would have been far 
greater if the owner had been content with 
fewer trees and had given each tree room 
to grow. We often see apple trees with pears 
between them, currants between the pears, 
and strawberries tucked in between the cur- 
rants. This combination, and others of a 
similar nature are very unsatisfactory except 
in the few cases where the grower keeps the 
soil very rich and gives each fruit special 
attention. 
WHEN TO TAKE OUT “ FILLERS”’ 
It is often desirable to plant the trees more 
thickly than they should stand after coming 
into full bearing, with the purpose of taking 
out some of the trees after they have borne a 
few crops. ‘Thus peaches are often planted 
between apple trees, and pears; sometimes 
early bearing varieties of apple like Yel- 
low Transparent and Wagener, are planted 
between the standard varieties. This plan 
of using ‘‘fillers” is all right if the peaches 
or early bearing apples are removed when the 
permanent trees need the space. But the 
majority of fruit growers will not do this; in 
most cases, the fillers are not cut out at all, 
and the orchard becomes a brush-pile in the 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE. 27 
/00 Feet. 
ae ae ~ ) 
© Z 3 Sak 2,0 
: g $9020 
a | & zt SOR 
s er Btn sQ:0 
eo e 18 2C8O 
( Flowers. ) & ase & 
6 Blackberries. 
Suggestion for planting a city lot 25x 100 feet. 
air from being so. crowded. Ten or twelve 
years is as long as early bearing varieties of 
apple, used as fillers should remain. Peaches 
may stay between apples for six to ten years, 
depending on the strength of the soil and the 
distance apart of the trees. Blackberries and 
raspberries may stay between the tree fruits, 
especially apples and pears, for six to eight 
years. Strawberries, which require tillage 
and high culture generally, are not usually 
considered a detriment to young trees. They 
may stay between them for four to eight 
years. 
HOW FAR APART TO PLANT 
Both tree fruits and small fruits are com- 
monly planted too close for the best results. 
This comes from a desire to get just as much 
as possible from the land, and a failure to look 
ahead and see how big the plants will be sev- 
eral years after planting. Very often one 
sees fruit trees planted ten or fifteen feet 
apart, when they ought to be thirty or forty 
feet apart. One tree that has room enough 
for a healthy growth of top and roots is more 
profitable than three half-starved trees occu- 
pying the same space. Choice fruit trees, 
free from blemish, cannot be grown in a 
crowded orchard. 
The distance that should be given varies 
greatly in different localities and on different 
soils. Apples in one locality may be more 
crowded at thirty-five feet apart than the same 
variety would be at twenty-six feet apart in 
another place. On heavy soils, all fruits, 
especially orchard fruits, make a more vig- 
orous growth than on light soils, and should 
Flowers. 
fee 
1 
SS 
Yaa7 oc 
Os 
Suggestion for planting a lot 50x 100 feet. 
8 Raspberries. 
The grapes may be trained to the fence, or over an arbor 
be given more room. This may make a differ- 
ence of several feet. Again, some varieties 
are small growers. It would not pay, for 
example, to give an upright spare-growing 
variety like the Wagener apple, as much room 
as a spreading, luxuriant-growing variety, 
like the Northern Spy apple. 
As a general guide, the following distances 
are suggested: ” Apples and sweet cherries, 
thirty to forty feet; pears, apricots, plums, 
peaches, and sour cherries, sixteen to twenty- 
four feet; quinces, sixteen feet; grapes, six 
by eight to eight by ten feet; currants and 
gooseberries, four by six to six by eight feet; 
raspberries, three by six to five by eight feet; 
blackberries, four by seven to six by nine feet; 
strawberries, one or one and a half by four 
feet. Dwarf apples or dwarf pears may be 
set at half the distance recommended for 
the standards. 
The plans that accompany this article are 
not ‘“‘model plans.” ‘There is a model plan 
for each fruit garden, but not for all fruit 
gardens, nor even for any considerable num- 
ber of gardens. No fruit garden can be 
entirely successful if it is patterned after 
another, unless the conditions of climate, soil, 
personal tastes, and all the other factors that 
have been mentioned, are exactly identical. 
This can never be, so it is unavoidable that 
each man should make his own plan in accor- 
dance with his own peculiar circumstances. 
The accompanying plans are merely hints 
that some amateurs may find useful as a 
skeleton for their own plans, to be changed 
and modified in accordance with the prin- 
ciples of garden planning. 
yo Pag 
Be 
7 Currants. an : 
CEC COEECE 
7 Gooseberries: € 
SOOCCCE 
berrves. 
99 /448Y 22/4 0 5 
ACE 
i) 
BPAOP ODE 
NT 
\ 
6 Grapes. 
The border of berries should be Kept cultivated 
