Notes on a Dry Land Orchard. 7 
While digging out this tree, roots of black locust were en- 
:ountered 30 feet from the nearest black locust tree. I11 other parts 
}f the orchard, we found roots of black locust 60 feet from the 
learest black locust tree. 
Tree Number Four .—This was a Ben Daivs apple tree which 
was planted shallow in 1895. It had a well-balanced top, and was 
eight inches in diameter at the surface of the ground. It had grown 
well and had borne several crops of fruit. It was healthy when 
:ut down. Some of the roots of this tree were quite large, meas¬ 
uring as much as three inches in diameter where they joined the 
trunk. This tree stood where it got water from the prairie when¬ 
ever a heavy dashinp* rain fell. This made conditions favorable for 
rooting deeply. One root was traced five feet down, one was traced 
four feet down and several were traced three feet down. But, the 
most of the feeding roots remained in the upper eighteen inches of 
soil. The main roots were found growing most of the distance 
within one foot of the surface. Fifteen of the large roots were 
traced distances varying from eight to twenty-six feet. One root 
was one-half inch thick at 17 feet and was still' one-eighth inch thick 
when broken and lost at 26 feet from the tree. Another was traced 
21 feet. The remaining 13 were traced from 8 to 15 feet. These 
were all cut when one-third to one-half inch thick. The stump 
with roots attached is shown in Plate II, Figure 2. 
. In digging out this tree, a Russian mulberry root was found 
which was traced 50 feet from the nearest mulberry tree. This ac¬ 
counts for the stunted appearance of some apple trees which were 
planted close to Russian mulberry trees. 
CONCEUSIONS. 
1. Trees used for windbreaks for orchards under dry farm¬ 
ing conditions are expensive unless the trees of the windbreak 
group are planted far enough from the fruit trees so that the roots 
of the windbreak group will not compete with the fruit trees for 
moisture. The root development of the Russian mulberry and 
black locust found at The Plains Substation indicate that the wind¬ 
break group should be planted 100 feet from the fruit trees. 
2. Roots of apple trees do not feed deeply here. If the ground 
about the ones dug up had been plowed twelve inches deep nearly 
all the large roots would have been broken. 
3. The roots of these trees grew deeper when the soil was wet 
below the normal depth. 
4. Deep planting of trees did not decrease the rate of growth. 
Neither did it alter materially the position of the feeding roots. 
5. The Dry-Land orchard is not considered as a commercial 
proposition, but it will pay every settler to plant a few well-selected 
trees and take extra care of them. Nearly all settlers plant more 
trees than they find time to care for, so they lose all. 
