Year: 1874

Planting an Orchard Sticking Cuttings.


EDS. WESTERN RURAL.-In mt.
ting out an orchard, would it be a
good plan to set the apple trees thir-
ty feet and fill the spaces with peach
trees Would it be best to put them
out iu February, or wait till Spring T?
When is the proper time to cut and
put out cottonwood cuttings


New SUBSCRIBER.


We have never advocated mixed
planting of this kind. OF course the
peach would not probably interfere
with the apple trees until they had
become old and useless for fruit !;
nevertheless, If the land in the spaces
between the trees devoted to orchard.
ing were required for culture in other
crops, it may be more economically
used in some fallow crop than in the
cultivation of fruit trees of various
sorts.


There is one reason for planting
trees thickly in a prairie country,
VIZ, the protection afforded by one
tree to another, during the first years
OF their growth. In setting an or
chard of any given fruit, some varie.
ties come into bearing early, and are
shorter lived than others. Among
these may be named Keswick Cod
ling, Maiden Blush, Jersey Black,
etc. Others, the Northern Spy, for
instance, are long time ia coming
into bearing. This has been taking
advantage of by sagacious orchard
lists, who plant every other tree in
alternate rows in the orchard of these
late bearing varieties, known to be
hardy, using others alternately that
come into bearing sooner. The 9TH
er alternate rows are planted to early
bearing varieties, which, as they in
teriere with or crowd the more hardy
sorts, are grubbed up and carried
away. Thus, if the orchard trees be
planted one rod apart, at the end of
twelve or fourteen years every alter
nate row may be taken out, and at
the end OF sixteen or twenty years
the alternates may be taken out OF the
alternate rows, allowing that all have
lived and done well. Your remaining
trees will be thirty three feet apart
none too small distance for mature
trees. Your trees will have protect
ed each other during their cary
growth and bearing, and in the cost
of cultivation you will have saved
three fourths of the work.


The same advice is applicable to
peaches. Indeed we should not sup.
pose that, in Northern aud Central
Kansas, the peach would be perfect
ly hardy. If we are correct it would
be but an additional reason for Civ
ing 1t better chance than it would
naturally get in an apple orchard.


If the soil is in a proper condition
for planting in February, that is, if
the frost is all out, the land dry anC
well settled, or in such condition that
you might sow wheat, oats barley,
ETC., all right. If not you had bet
ter wait until settled weather in
Spring. One of the most fatal mis-.
takes that can be made in planting
any variety of trees, is to plant when
there is a substratum of frost under.
meath the tree. Do not plant unless
the soil is entirely free from frost be-
meath and the land in proper condi.
,ion for working, that is, in perfect.
ly friable state.


On the other hand, the proper time
for planting cuttings # any kind,
either cottonwood, willow or other
kinds, is when the soil is so soft from
the issuing of frost or the effects of
rain, that the cuttings may be easily
thrust into the soil to proper depth.
Still we do not advise this as the
best way. 1t is easy, cheap, and
they grow kindly. They are better
planted with dibble after the soil is
in working condition. Few, how
ever, practice this plan from it's cost;
many, however, do make trenches
with shovel or other plow, laying
the cuttings therein at an angle of,
say forty-five degrees, covering and
tramping the bottom hard and filling
with loose earth.


Cuttings may be taken at any time
after the dropping of leaves and be-
fore the swelling of the buds. They
should never be cut, however, when
the wood is frozen, The best time
for cutting is in the Fall. The cut.
tings should be tied in punches and
set in the ground, small end up, and
entirely covered with earth. By
this means they will have become
calloused in the spring and ready to
put forth roots. If left too long,
they will be found to have made
| roots