be planted about 16 feet apart, and thinned out as they crowd each other. "The sour cherries need about 18 to 20 feet, while the larger-growing sweet varieties require fully 20 feet, and in time, if they are not pruned back severely, 40 or more feet when they attain their full size. Plum orchards should vary somewhat in closeness with the varieties planted. The great prune orchards of the Pacific slope are set with about 20 feet between the trees. The orchards of our native species require about the same room; but the Japanese class is usually more upright in growth, and may be planted a little closer." *Twenty-second Ann. Rep. Ontario Agr. College, 84 (1897). with a minimum amount of hand hoeing. The acranged so that cultivation may be given both ways Fig. 40. Suggestion for a fruit garden of one acre. Row 1. Large trees, like apples. 6 to 8 trees. Row 4. Large trees, like plums. 10 to 16 trees. Row 5. Large trees, like peaches. 10 to 16 trees. Row 6. Grapes. 20 to 30 plants. Row 7. Small-fruits, like raspberries and blackberries. Row 8. Small-fruits,- currants, gooseberries, or 2 rows of strawberries. 16 RODS. 10 RODS. small-fruits in an orchard: Craig describes the following method of planting "The bushes were The Home Fruit Garden. ar 275 companying plan (Fig. 39) shows the arrangement of the trees and bushes. The trees are planted on the hexagonal plan, the rows being 30 feet apart and the trees 35 feet apart in the rows, the trees in one row alternating with those in the next. By this method of arrangement, 15 per cent more trees can be planted to the acre than by the ordinary method, and yet not be any more crowded. The bushes are 6 feet apart one way by 5 feet 10 inches the other. At present no trees are nearer than 9 feet to the apple trees. As the trees increase in size, those bushes within the circles, as shown on the plan, will be the first to be removed." The family fruit plantation.-It is impossible to give any specific advice for the plan of a family fruit garden, because tastes are SO personal, and the amount and character of land at the disposal of the party are so various. One can only say that the varieties should be chosen for best dessert and culinary qualities, for succession through the season, and that the area should be so planted that the rows run the long way of the land and to allow of easy cultivation with a horse. In general, it will not be necessary to provide for cultivation both ways. The accompanying diagram (Fig. 40) suggests how an area of one acre may be laid out in a fruit garden for the home supply. For a number of years, other plants as vegetables, small-fruits, or dwarf apples or dwarf pears - may be grown, not only between the rows, but between the trees in the row. - THE CHAPTER VI. SECONDARY AND INCIDENTAL CARE OF THE THE methods of tilling the fruit plantation have been fully considered in Chapter III., but since the subject is so important and so commonly misunderstood, it may be well to repeat two or three of the advisory suggestions at this place. There are many persons who fully believe that clean tillage is the proper treatment for an orchard, but who are debarred from putting the matter into practice because of the great amount of labor which they conceive to attach to it. As commonly practiced, it is certainly true that the tilling of orchards is one of the most laborious duties of the farm, but this is because the accustomed methods are wrong or bungling. The orchardist rarely has the land fully under his control. The essence of the whole matter is to get the land in ideal condition whilst the orchard is young, and then to practice surface tillage (with only occasional plowings) after the trees begin to bear. The use of modern implements makes it easy to keep the land clean without resorting to the high trunks of the old-time orchards. If the roots are made to strike deep into the land by deep plowing for the first few years, it may not be necessary to turn any furrows in the plantation in later years, except to turn under cover crops. All this can be done even with hard clay land. The writer has the management of two orchards upon very hard clay of uneven surface, which, in six years from the setting of the trees, is in such condition that deep plowing is no longer necessary, and the spring fitting of the land is done with spading harrows and spring-tooth harrows, and the subsequent tilling is partly done with a spike-tooth harrow. Weeds are not allowed to appear; but if a patch should get a start now and then, it can generally be destroyed with the cultivator. Perhaps once or twice during the season it will be necessary to send a man through the orchard with a hoe to take the weeds away from the trees, but the space which needs such hand labor will not exceed two feet in diameter, and it is usually very much less. This has been accomplished by exercising great care to plow the clay when it is in such condition that it pulverizes when it is worked, and by the incorporation of one or two cover crops. It will be necessary now and then to put cover crops on the land for the purpose of adding humus, and the land will then be regularly plowed in spring to turn the crop under; but even then it may not be the desire to secure a heavy growth of cover crop, and the spring plowing need not necessarily be deep and laborious. If, however, it seems to be necessary to plow six or eight inches deep, there will be no |