May, 1914 



THE flARDEN AND FIELD. 



r>if> 



De«igi\ or " L»y-0\it " of a. Oommercietl 

 Apple OrcK&rd. 



lU- K. C;. Ivdoell, Hathurst. 



— Importance of Systematk 



Lay. Out. — 



Haviiijj decided upon the class of 

 fruit he intends to grow, ami after 

 obtaining" his land, the orchardist 

 is confronted with the problem of 

 niakintj the best use of it. The 

 choice of design or " lay-out " is 

 one of the most important factors 

 in solving- that problem. It can- 

 not be too strongly insi,sted that 

 this is by no means a matter for 

 individual taste or fancy. 



Upon it very largely depends the 

 economical use of the land by the 

 trees and the economical cultiva- 

 tion and working of the orchard. 

 It is fundamental, and is the one 

 factor which, once adopted, can 

 never be altered. If we plant 

 wrong \arieties we can later on 

 work them o\er to better kinds ; 

 if our methods of pruning or culti- 

 vation are faulty we may mend 

 our way.s afterwards ; but once the 

 trees are established in place we 

 must, for good or ill, adhere to 

 the svstem adopted. This may 

 mean far more than the difference 

 between profit and loss. 



]Much of what follows is applic- 

 able to all or many of the yarious 

 svstems of lay-out, and e>ach grow- 

 L>r should carefully consider the 

 subject from his own point of view 

 and conditions before he plants. 

 It is Tiroposed to describe in out- 

 line the methods adopted by the 

 writer in tbe de.si'rn of commercial 

 apple orchards of lo acres or larg- 

 er area. The arraneement of the 

 trees in various patterns throueh- 

 out the orchards is almost as old 

 as the hills, but as far as the wri- 

 ter is aware, some of the methods 

 he describes are novel. 



— Analysis of the Principal 



Systems. — 



A commercial orchardist will 

 aim at obtaining the hig-hest aver- 

 age returns from the lowest aver- 

 age expenditure. Rather than pro- 

 duce a few specially fancy speci- 

 mens he will desire to raise the 

 all-round excellence of his crops. 

 In order to do this, each root and 

 branch of each tree should be en- 

 couraged to bring forth its best. 

 Where one branch or twig is seen to 

 crowd or interfere with its neigh- 

 bour the Druner will unhesitating- 

 ly cut it back ; but the same man 

 will be found to so arrange his 

 orchard trees that some of their 

 roots are almost sure to crowd 



out some of the other roots, and 

 becau.se this takes pllace under- 

 ground and out of .sight, it does 

 not trouble the orchardi.st's mind, 

 thougili his i)ocket has to suffer. 



.\s the young tree grows to ma- 

 turtitv its roots will radiate in all 

 directions, and the ground it feeds 

 and lives upon will approximate to 

 the figure of a circle, with the 

 stem of the tree at its centre. It 

 is not claimed that every root of 

 every tree is equal, so that each 

 occupies a perfect circle of the 

 same size ; but this is the averag'e, 

 especially where the orchard 

 g-rowth is healthy and where the 

 trees are pruned and cultivated 

 with a view to equality and sym- 

 metry. As the averag'e tree will 

 naturally occuin- a circle of land, 

 the planter should so arrani'^e that 

 each tree is provided with its cir- 

 cle of the requisite area, and that 

 there shall be as little as possible 

 of " waste " land in between the 

 circles. The author does not claim 

 that all the land between the cir- 

 cles is absolutely wasted ; he real- 

 ises that some fortunate root may 

 push out into a " waste " corner, 

 and so make full use of it : but the 

 a vera "^e root will not dp this, and 

 it is absurd for the planter to 

 nrovide fantastic shapes of land 

 for his trees to o-row into just be- 

 cause by lucky chance some of 



TRY 



JAMES WHITE & SON 



238, CAIIRINGTON ST., .\l)l-;i.All)K, 

 —.For — 



liaths and Bath lleatera, 



I'anks, Skylights, Ventilators, etc., 



And all kinds of Plumbing Wcrk. 

 iiist yuality Work Only. 



them may be filled. In all exam- 

 inations of systematic planting the 

 natural requirements of the tree 

 should 1>e borne in mind, even 

 thout;h speicial conditions may be 

 l)aramount. 



Before deciding- on the sjiacing of 

 the trees, local and all other con- 

 ditions should always be well 

 studied, l>ut these hardly fall 

 within the scope of the present 

 article. For the sake of illu.sitra- 

 tion it will be advantageous to as- 

 sume some definite width of spac- 

 inc, and the distance of 24 feet 

 (which is suitable for most Bath- 

 urst conditions) has been adopt-ed 

 in this article. 



On the assumption that our es- 

 timate of the tree's natural gro-wlh 

 is correct, each tree at maturity 

 will utilise a circle of gronnd 24 

 feet in diameter. If we provide 

 less, the roots of adjacent trees 

 will crowd each other ; if more, 

 some of the land will be wasted, 

 and there wild be fewer trees to 

 earn the planter's income, while 



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IINSPECTIOIN IINVITED. 

 Catalogues Rree by Post. 



C. A. NOBELIUS 



Qembrook INurseries, 



Emerald (Vic), Australia. 



