of standard size trees. The Home Gardener can plant a 
few trees in the space usually occupied by one standard 
tree, and so several varieties covering the season can be 
planted in a small garden. As for the Fruit Grower, he 
can plant twice as many trees and he picks fruit twice as 
soon. 
They bear a generous crop of bigger, more luscious 
and richly colored fruit than large trees do. No waiting 
years for fruit. Dwarf trees mature faster, thus bearing 
10 to 12 years earlier than standard trees do. As a gen- 
eral rule, all dwarf fruit trees are fruit bearing at three 
years, with the exception of peaches and nectarines 
which varieties bear at two years. Under normal condi- 
tions, dwarf trees should bear fruit the following year 
after planting. 
Because Dwarf fruit trees are limited in height, they 
are easier to prune—easier to spray—and fruit is easily 
harvested with a reduced damaged crop. Most dwarf 
trees will reach full bearing age at 8 years. 
At maturity, the Dwarf fruit tree attains a height of 
5 to 10 feet, and the Semi-Dwarf fruit trees 12 to 15 feet. 
‘Plant Dwarf fruit trees 8 to 10 feet distance each way. 
Plant Semi-Dwarf trees 15 to 20 feet distance each way, 
according to variety and soil. But, if space permits, fruit 
trees may be planted further apart, if desired. 
Much interest has developed in dwarf fruit trees since 
divers experimental stations throughout the country 
were able to prove to both the trade and the gardeners 
alike, that apples grafted or budded on certain of the 
Malling stocks really are size-controlled, early cropping, 
long lasting and fruitful, and the call for such trees has 
been far greater than the supply. 
Of course, some critical fruit growers whose experi- 
ence with dwarf trees in the past was disappointing, are 
still unconvinced that dwarf apples are any good and in 
some instances they have more or less advised gardeners 
against even trying dwarf trees even tho they had no 
experience with pedigreed root stocks. Visit the large 
plantings at some of the leading Experimental Stations 
where all the 16 types of Malling stocks have been under 
test for years—full sized trees in many varieties, showing 
the merits of each type of stock. 
Malling stocks are not really new—they are simply 
the result of careful selection over a series of years from 
all the so-called Paradise, Doucin and other stocks that 
were in use in Europe. In the course of a century or two, 
varying types of the root propagated stocks had become 
pretty much mixed and when buying from wholesale 
propagators, a grower was liable to have a wide varia- 
tion in the growth of the variation he worked—of the 
existing nine so-called doucin or paradise rootstocks, 
[6 ] 
