Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 130, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1912 — LOW-HEADED ORCHARD TREES [ARTICLE]

LOW-HEADED ORCHARD TREES

Three Feet Is Common Height for Apple, While With Peach and Plum It Is Much Lower. Commercial orchards of apples and pears are nowadays headed much lower than formerly, three feet being a very common height for starting the head of these trees, while with the peach and plum the head is started even lower, eighteen to twenty inches being a common height. The reason for this is that in certain localities, where windstorms are frequent, the low-headed trees are less likely to be broken, lose a smaller proportion of their fruit, and are less subject to'injury from sun scald as the low heads of the trees serve to a certain extent as a shade for the body. The cost of harvesting the fruit from low-headed trees is much less than that of gathering from tall trees. With the low-headed trees a considerable portion of the crop can oe gathered by the picker standing upon the ground, while with high-headed trees the major part of the work must be done from ladders, which greatly extends the time required to do the picking, and consequently, increases its cost. Pruning, spraying, trimming, as well as harvesting, will be found to be more convenient on low than high-headed trees.