Getting the Most in an Orchard — By H. M. Martin, 



New 

 York 



A MAJORITY OF ORCHARDS ARE PLANTED ON A PLAN THAT IS MOST WASTEFUL OF SPACE, NEARLY ONE- 

 FOURTH OF THE LAND BEING UNPRODUCTIVE — THE VARIOUS WAYS ANALYSED ON THE BASIS OF AN ACRE 



IT IS manifestly necessary in order to get the fullest returns from 

 an orchard, to have every inch of available space occupied to 

 the best advantage during the early years of the trees' growth, and 

 plenty of room left for the complete development of the mature 

 tree, yet it is a fact that one quarter of the space is actually wasted 

 in the great majority of orchards. Full-grown 

 apple-trees should be at least forty feet apart for 

 such varieties as Mcintosh and Hubbardston — 

 forty-five feet for Baldwin, Greening, etc. — and 

 in many cases fifty feet is not too great. Yet 

 one cannot afford to plant trees so far apart, and 

 wait for them to come into full bearing; he must 

 occupy the space between the permanent trees 

 with secondary crops. The best way is to plant 

 shorter-lived fruit trees as fillers, which must be 

 cut out as soon as they begin to crowd the others. 

 It takes courage to cut out thrifty bearing trees, 

 but it must be done. 



Before the orchard is set, a planting plan should 

 be carefully made, showing the position of each 

 tree. There are three main systems of planting: 

 the square, or rectangular; the quincunx; 

 and the hexagonal. An orchard laid out 

 according to the square system would 

 consist of a series of squares with a tree 

 at each corner of the intersecting squares. 

 This is the most common method, but it 

 is the most wasteful with reference to 

 use of land. A tree, if unhindered in 

 its growth, may be expected to develop 

 equally in all directions, and may be 

 represented by a. circle. The adjoining 

 figure shows how these circles touch each 

 other when the trees are full grown. The 

 shaded space is unoccupied, and amounts 

 to almost 23 per cent, of the area. 



Because of this large amount of waste space in the square 

 system of planting, a tree was put in the centre of the square, 

 forming the quincjinx group. In this way about double the num- 

 ber of trees per acre may be set out. But they cannot all reach 

 their full growth,, as is shown in fig. 3. The continuous circles 

 intersect, showing how the centre tree interferes with the growth 

 of the trees at the corners of the squares. It is better to remove 

 the centre tree before it reaches this stage of development. 

 The dotted circles show the amount of development each 



Fig. 1 — Area of occupancy in the hexag- 

 onal system. This shows the least -waste 



Fig. 2 — Square Fig. 3 — Quincunx 



« 

 Showing (Fig. 2) occupied area and waste (Fig. 3) 

 lapping 



tree reaches before it is interfered with by its neighbors. The 

 orchard may be considered therefore as a system of squares running 

 diagonally across the field, and the waste space is still, in reality, 

 23 per cent. 



The least unoccupied area is attained in the hexagonal system, 

 as shown by fig. i. When trees are planted in 

 this way, only lo per cent of the area is unoccu- 

 pied, and the trees are distributed evenly over 

 the field. All trees are equidistant, forming a 

 series of equilateral triangles. About 15 per cent 

 more trees per acre can be planted by this 

 method, than by the square system, yet with the 

 same distance between trees. 



THE USE or FILLERS 



The use of early-bearing and shorter-lived trees 

 as fillers in an apple orchard is strongly recom- 

 mended. By such means the orchard should 

 have paid for itself, and yielded a good income, 

 before the permanent trees come into bearing. 

 Either peaches or early bearing apples, such as 

 Wagener or Wealthy, m.ay be used. 

 Some strongly advocate the use of dwarf 

 apples; but others consider that they do 

 not come into bearing much earlier than 

 the standard varieties. Results of ex- 

 periments at the New York State Ex- 

 periment Station, Geneva, are unfavor- 

 able to the use of dwarf trees from this 

 standpoint. 



In setting out an orchard by the square 

 system, the permanent trees should be 

 set forty feet apart for Hubbardston and 

 Mcintosh; for Greening and Baldwin 

 preferably forty-five or fifty feet. Stand- 

 ard apples of early bearing varieties such 

 as Wealthy or Wagener, could then be set half way between the 

 permanent trees forming squares half the size as shown in fig. 7, 

 in which the larger trees represent the permanent ones; the smaller, 

 the fillers. In thinning, the alternate diagonal row should be cut 

 out first, as indicated by the dotted lines in fig. 8. This leaves 

 the tree in the centre of the square, which can stand some years 

 longer. But the orchard in its present condition is really on the 

 ^^ quincunx plan. This central tree may be removed by cutting 



Ti; out the alternate rows at right angles to the fence line as 



?- 



9 



^ 



'9 



^ 



9 



9: 



^ 



^. 



.^ 



/ I 



I 



■^' 



4 



\ 



--^• 



^: 



\ I 

 \ 

 \ 



\ 



<^ 



Fig. 4 — The square systena Fig. 5— The hexagonal system Fig. 6 — The quincunx system 



These are the three main plans for planting an orchard. The square system is the most common and also the most wasteful of space 



116 



