INTERCROPPING 
7 
Currants and Strawberries between Apple tree rows 
Strawberries growing between rows of fruit trees 
HOW TO MAKE YOUR ORCHARD PRODUCE— While waiting for your trees to come into 
bearing, FILLERS and INTERCROPS can be profitably used. The orchard trees must be set 
far enough apart so that when full grown they will have plenty of air and sunshine for the develop- 
ment of good fruit and also to carry on economically the operations of pruning, spraying, cultivation, 
and picking. However, the young trees do not need all the ground for a number of years. 
Young-bearing apple trees, such as Wagener and Yellow near good markets. The small fruits also — strawberries, cur- 
Transparent, peach, plum, and cherry trees make good fillers 
and produce a number of crops before they have to be re- 
moved to make room for the permanent trees. The danger 
of this method is that the orchardist is tempted to let the fillers 
stand too long. 
Between the trees, such intercrops as early potatoes 
and beans are particularly good; corn, also, if not planted 
too close to the trees. Garden truck is often quite profitable 
rants, gooseberries, raspberries, and asparagus — make good 
intercrops. Do not plant any crop that does not permit 
cultivation nor one that requires very late cultivation. But 
if the soil is poor and lacking in fertility, such crops as cow- 
peas, soy beans, rye, vetch, and, under certain circumstances, 
clover, should be grown between the trees and plowed under 
to enrich the soil. 
One-year tree pruned at 
planting 
NOTE — The one-year 
apple tree is usually a 
a straight whip, but some 
varieties, like the Jona- 
than, almost invariably 
form branched tops. ThesJ 
may be pruned as if they 
were whips or the same as 
two-year apple. 
The way that a two-year-old 
tree from the nursery (or a 
one-year-old tree that has 
made one season's growth in 
the orchard) should appear 
after pruning 
Trees With Balanced 
Roots 
You can hear a lot about the kind of 
trees and which is best — budded, grafted, 
whole root, piece root, or double 
worked — but if we are very careful 
about getting a tree with clean even roots 
well balanced around the main root, we 
will not need to bother much about how 
it was produced. The vital thing is to 
get a good root, and this we can be sure 
of getting only when we buy of reliable 
nursery and insist on this kind of tree, 
or see the root of the trees we buy before 
we take them. 
If you are offered a tree with a main 
root going off at an angle with a couple 
or three little branch roots at the tip go- 
ing off in the same direction, or not much 
differing, it will be the safest plan to pass 
that tree up. Its root system will be de- 
veloped mostly in the direction these roots 
have taken. It will hardly produce a 
first class tree. 
If the tree has roots spreading about 
equally in all directions, and these show 
evidence of sending out frequent branches, 
you know that the tree will have an even 
root system if the soil conditions are all 
right. Such a tree will give the maximum 
growth under the conditions under which 
it is grown. 
Buy Only Good Trees 
If you will buy first-class trees with 
one-year tops you will get this kind of 
roots generally, for they will produce 
stronger tops in the same length of time. 
Where the trees are sold by the size \vith- 
out reference to age, many times they will 
be marked first class when they have at- 
tained the size only with an extra season's 
growth. This is not really a first-class 
tree at all, and should not be purchased 
as such. A smaller tree without the extra 
season's growth might well be a better tree. 
I think the finest trees I ever received, 
considering the roots, were Junebud 
peach, first class, 18 to 24 inches in height. 
I have purchased yearling trees with no 
better roots, and seldom as well balanced, 
though budded trees are usually pretty 
well balanced. I have grown apples from 
good crown grafts that were as well bal- 
anced as any budded trees, but I have 
purchased them at times so lop-sided 
that I could not advise their being 
planted at all. It is poor economy to plant 
a poor tree. It takes years to grow a 
tree to full bearing, and the chances are 
that if we ever got a good tree from one 
of these it would be at the expense of an 
extra year or two of growth. Remember 
it isn't the first crop you lose, but the 
next one after the last you gather. You 
should have gathered your last a year 
sooner. 
(From American Fruit Grower, June, 1919) 
