28 o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
April 16 
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SMALL FRUITS AMONG TREE FRUITS. 
Several Subscribers .—To what extent is it possible or desirable 
to grow small fruits in peach, plum or apple orchards? 
Currants Among Apples and Pears. 
We have grown currants to quite a large extent un¬ 
der apple and pear trees, for a number of years, which 
have yielded good crops without injuring the other 
fruit. These bushes were planted in the tree row, 
from one to two bushes between each two pear trees ; 
the trees are from 10 to 12 feet apart. Of late years, 
we have grown the bushes closer together in the row, 
and another row between the tree rows. We are doing 
the same with gooseberries. If it is too shady, it is 
not advisable to grow fruit under the trees, as it is 
liable to injure the fruit. Richard hittinger. 
Massachusetts. 
Requires Extra Fertilizer and Tillage. 
In setting apple, pear, plum or peach orchards, it is 
my practice to set small fruits in the spaces between 
the trees. A crop or two of strawberries can be taken 
off, then followed by currants or raspberries. Nothing 
is set nearer than seven feet to the tree. This leaves 
ample space for cultivation of the tree, the roots of 
the plants are not using up the plant food that the 
trees require, for at least five years, while this wide 
space admits of running through with spraying 
wagons to do that w r ork. Under this plan, the crops 
of small fruits must be grown by annual applications 
of fertilizers, in order that the plant food for the 
trees shall not be .depleted. Very thorough tillage 
must be given to obtain good yields of fruit and to 
forward the growth of the tree. Where there is a 
market for currants they are the best to grow, though 
black raspberries do well with a little shade. In ap¬ 
ple, pear, plum and cherry orchards, we cultivate cur¬ 
rants extensively, and after the picking season is over, 
cultivate thoroughly, sow 10 pounds of Crimson clover 
seed per acre, and plow the plants down early in 
the Spring. I would not dare to use the clover con¬ 
tinuously in peach orchards. It is practicable to grow 
any of the small fruits in young orchards by extra 
fertilizing and tillage. geo. t. powell. 
Columbia County, N. Y. 
Not Successful with Red Raspberries . 
It lias come under my observation for years, that, 
in this locality, red raspberries will not thrive in a 
plot of ground set to peach trees ; they do not seem to 
affiliate with each other. I have had no experience 
with blackberries or blackcaps in plum or peach 
orchards, though I am of the opinion that they would 
do well for a few years, if set at the same time as the 
trees. I would not advocate the planting of any small 
fruit in a half or full grown peach orchard. Currants 
do better than either of the abovementioned plants in 
a moderately shaded location, and grow well in a 
peach or plum orchard, but better by themselves in 
the open. In planting a field to plum or peach trees, 
it is well to set strawberry plants at the same time, 
making the trees 15 feet apart each way, planting a 
strawberry row in the row of trees, and four rows in 
the space between trees, making rows three feet wide, 
though if the plants are strong growers, and the soil 
rich, I u 7 ould advocate but three rows in the spaces 
between the trees, dividing the distance equally, as a 
matter of course. This crop would then have fruited 
twice before the trees had assumed large growth. I 
would prefer to plant the trees, either plum or peach, 
by themselves, and allow them the full strength of 
the respective plots of ground they occupy, give them 
judicious cultivation and fertilizing, and grow the 
berries on a plot by themselves. The amount of land 
possessed nearly always governs the case. 
Ulster County, N. Y. a. \v. williams. 
Mixed Planting in Young Orchards. 
In general cultivation, it is not best to try to grow 
bush fruits or strawberries permanently in an orchard. 
There are no fruits that can be grown profitably 
where they are densely shaded by orchard trees. The 
question of planting small fruits in a young orchard 
must be considered from two different points of view. 
The man w'ho makes a specialty of some one thing, as 
strawberries, and does not grow a succession of all 
sorts of fruits, has an easier task than the man who 
has no specialty, and grows all sorts of fruits in a 
succession. The first man can plant much more 
closely than the second. In general, too, strawberries 
are much better for the orchard than bush fruits, 
because they are in the soil only one year, and their 
annual removal gives a better chance for thorough 
tillage. Fig. 131 shows a method of planting small 
fruits in an orchard, which is essentially that prac¬ 
ticed some time ago by Mr. John Craig, at the Central 
Experiment Farm, Ottawa, Canada. The trees are 
planted in the hexagonal fashion, each tree being 35 
feet from every other. The bushes arc check-rowed 
in the rectangular fashion, the rows in one direction 
being six feet w'ide, and in the other direction, five 
feet and ten inches. As the trees increase in size, the 
bushes inside the circles are the first to be removed. 
Mr. Craig now thinks this plan too complicated. 
The square system of planting is simpler than the 
hexagonal system (which is also called the triangular 
or quincunx), and it is generally adopted on cheap 
lands, in orchards on a vast scale, and where the labor 
is not intelligent. The hexagonal system seems more 
complicated at first, but it is more economical of space, 
and is, therefore, the better system for high-priced 
lands. The more valuable the land, the more ingen¬ 
ious and complicated the plans are likely to be. The 
plan illustrated would seem wasteful to a raspberry 
specialist. In Fig. 131, the berry bushes are six feet 
by five feet ten inches. In general cultivation, black 
raspberries are set three feet by six feet and reds three 
feet by five feet. A specialist can plant closer. 
It is usually better to have trees and bushes in a 
young orchard than to have all trees and nothing else, 
whether the combination consist of standards and 
dwarfs, long-lived and short-lived, or early and late- 
bearing trees. The only dwarf trees that are gener¬ 
ally. successful are dwarf pears. The old plan of 
planting standard and dw 7 arf pears in the same 
orchard is now generally abandoned. It is best to 
make two separate orchards of them, and grow small 
fruits in the young orchards, or any other crop that 
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MIXED PLANTING IN YOUNG ORCHARDS. Fin. 131. 
requires inter-tillage. I don’t believe in permanent 
and temporary trees in an orchard. I believe in per¬ 
manent trees and temporary bushes, or strawberries, 
or other low-growing inter-tilled crops. 
Tompkins County, N. Y. wilhelm miller. 
The Whole Story Considered. 
In order to grow small fruits successfully in an or¬ 
chard, the soil must not only be rich enough to sustain 
the double tax upon the soil, but it must be made re¬ 
tentive of moisture by thorough underdraining, by 
incorporating with it plenty of humus, and by skillful 
cultivation to prevent loss of moisture by evaporation. 
1 have never grown any small fruits among peach 
trees, and would hardly consider it advisable, unless 
it might be strawberries. They could be planted when 
the peach trees are. The cultivation given the straw¬ 
berries the first year would be all right for the peaches, 
unless it caused an excessive growth, which I do not 
think would be likely to occur, inasmuch as the straw¬ 
berry plants, if grown in matted rows, would probably 
counteract any tendency to excessive growth. The 
second year, I would plow as soon as through picking, 
and even then, the growth w'ould, probably, be checked 
somewhat. I have a plum orchard of 1,020 trees in 
which I have black raspberries and currants planted. 
Trees and plants were set at the same time (Fall of 
1894). During the drought of last year, the raspber¬ 
ries (Eureka) yielded 100 bushels per acre, but the 
growth of the plum trees was not quite satisfactory, 
and this Spring, I shall dig up a few of the bushes 
next to the trees, and in a year more, shall take out 
the entire plantation of raspberries, but leave the cur¬ 
rants a couple of years longer. The latter seem to be 
a little better adapted to growing among plums than 
do raspberries. Standard pears, on account, perhaps, 
of their habit of rooting very deeply, seem to be 
affected less by the growing of small fruits among 
them. The apple, also, does not seem to be injured. 
My preference, then, as to the different varieties of 
fruit trees among which to grow small fruits would be 
about in the following order : Standard pears, apples, 
plums, cherries and peaches. 
The small fruits have never seemed to suffer except 
when planted too close to the trees, or when the trees 
are too large. I grow berries in my orchards only 
while they are young, and as soon as the orchard 
comes into full bearing, I devote that piece of land 
entirely to the production of fruit or fertility, which, 
a little later on, is converted into fruit. The advant¬ 
ages of this sj'stem are, first, it is easier to cultivate 
and tend a young orchard that is planted to raspber¬ 
ries or currants, by means of a one-horse plow or cul¬ 
tivator, than it is to fit it each year in the usual method 
for an annual crop. Second, our land is producing a 
profitable crop while our orchard is young. Third, 
to grow the same amount of fruit, we are not obliged 
to use as much land and labor. On the other hand, 
on land that is not well fed and tended, the trees, 
and even the small fruits, are likely to suffer for lack 
of food and moisture. My practice has been to plant 
my apple and pear orchards with raspberries or cur¬ 
rants, crop five or six years, and then, when about 
time for the trees to come into full bearing, remove 
the small fruits in the latter part of July, and sow the 
ground to buckwheat and rye at once. Then if frost 
do not cut the buckwheat before it begins to mature 
seed, I mow it off rather high, and allow it to mulch 
the rye. In February following, I sow six quarts of 
Red clover per acre on the rye, and keep the rye mowed 
off as fast as it heads, letting it fall down to mulch 
the clover. 1 clip the rye, clover, and weeds several 
times during the season, and the next year, I have a 
tremendous crop of clover, that I can mow and feed, 
plow 7 under the sod and aftermath the following 
Spring, cultivate with a disk harrow during the grow¬ 
ing season, and in the Fall, seed again, if I wish for 
another fertilizing crop. w. w. farnswortii. 
Ohio. _ 
“ Sunscald " on Fruit Trees ; Cause, Effect. 
J. 0. B., Bed Bill, Va .—I was in an apple orchard a short time 
apo in which the trees seem to be dying’ from a cause tinknown 
to me. The bark on a tree apparently healthy would be burst 
sometimes the whole length, and nearly around the body. I 
could find no trace of any insects of any kind. The owner tells 
me that he has been losing them for a year or more, and that as 
many die in Summer as in Winter. The trees are about 12 years 
old. Can you tell anything about the nature of the disease ? 
ANSWERED BY H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
The trouble with the apple trees mentioned is wh at is 
commonly called sunscald. It comes from an uneven¬ 
ness of temperature and moisture in some cases, and 
in others from the effects of blight. In no case is it 
from the killing of the living tissues of the tree, by 
excessively high temperature, during the Summer— 
“ the cooking of the sap,” as some say. According to 
Prof. T. J. Burrill, of Illinois, who has, perhaps, 
given this subject more attention than any one else— 
there are many cases in which the formation of ice 
crystals beneath the bark in Winter is so great that 
the bark is forced loose from the wood, and never 
grows fast again. It may not at first appear to have 
occurred, except in case of careful internal examina¬ 
tion. Perhaps it may be the middle of the next Sum¬ 
mer before, there is any outward sign of dead bark, 
or rather, of dead cambium ; but it is there, never¬ 
theless. Hence, we see trees dying at different times 
of the year, the sap wood carrying on the circulation 
of sap long after the cambium layer is unable to do 
so. It must not be supposed that it is the true sap 
that freezes and causes the expansion, but the water 
that has accumulated in the spaces between the fibers 
of the tender tissue. Prof. Burrill told me in a con¬ 
versation several years ago, and he has stated the 
same thing publicly on several occasions, that the sap 
of trees certainly does not freeze at as low a tempera¬ 
ture as 12 degrees below zero, and possibly, not at 
all. He has tested the matter repeatedly with the 
microscope in the open air. But he said that a part 
of the water of the sap within the cell walls is some¬ 
times forced, by the contraction of the woody tissues 
about them, to give up the chemical combination with 
the various materials that go to make the sap, and 
pass outside the cell walls ; then it will congeal and 
form icc crystals. We know that salty water does 
not freeze as easily as fresh water, and the same is 
true of water with sugar dissolved in it. Alcohol is 
largely water, but it has certain other elements in it 
that make it less susceptible to congelation than 
almost any other liquid. Water, also, comes up from 
the earth by capillarity, through the ducts which are 
in all wood and which are especially large and numer¬ 
ous in the young, outward layers of wood. 
The water in the heart wood of a tree is not sap, 
and it freezes the first of any in the tree, even before 
that in the young, living wood. When there has been 
a very dry spell in Summer, and growth is materially 
checked, and then followed by a wet Fall that gorges 
the wood and bark with water, there is very likely to 
be separation of the bark and wood when a severe 
cold spell comes on. I have seen 'thousands of young 
nursery trees “ bark-bursted ” at the surface of the 
