A favorite method with some planters of fruits is, to make a combination of different kinds in the same orchard, so as to have the whole surface occupied from the first. In this way, by introducing a temporary crop of another variety which will make speedy returns, and will soon be ready to come away and make room for the permanent plantation, the ground may be rendered productive of remunerative crops from the first. It is a very common plan to combine in this way the apple and the peach--the latter come into bearing rapidly, and are generally ready to be removed by the time the apple trees need the whole space. Alternate rows and alternate trees are usually planted with peaches, and the small growing cherries, such as the Early May, often called the Early Richmond, can be planted in the same way. I have seen a still further combination of fruits made by the introduction of the raspberry, or even of the blackberry, the currant, and the gooseberry, in alternate rows, so that, by setting the apple trees at forty feet, with alternating cherry trees, and the cherry rows in the middle space, or twenty feet each way from the apple and cherry rows, and in the intermediate strips of twenty feet the berries, which were also set between the trees, the whole ground was laid off in rows of fruit separated by strips of ten feet wide. Nothing is then needed for the full occupation of the ground, and to yield a return of fruit the next year, but to plant a single row of strawberries in each of these ten feet spaces; these, if well treated, would make four beds in the spaces between every two of the apple tree rows, or each ten feet, which is nearly half as much as would be planted in the open field; and these would yield a half crop the next year after planting, and as much the next season, when they should be plowed up to give cultivation to the berry bushes that would then also bear a crop of fruit, and continue to do so until the larger trees needed the ground for their support. The peaches or cherries would commence bearing the third or fourth year, and some of the apples would follow quickly afterward, yielding partial crops. By such a combination, as has been represented, the land is made to yield a succession of paying fruit crops from the second year of the foundation of the orchard. [Illustration: Fig. 26.--DIAGRAM OF PLANTING QUINCUNX.]