et ye me GopyrightNOD. 8 7" COPYRIGHT DEPOSE: ph. ¥ ay ep nel 7 oy rey: “The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.’ —EMERSON. LIPPINCOTT’S FARM MANUALS EDITED BY KARY C. DAVIS, Px.D. (Corne.1) PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE, SCHOOL OF COUNTRY LIFE GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE PRODUCTIVE ORCHARDING MODERN METHODS OF GROWING AND MARKETING FRUIT By FRED C. SEARS, MLS. PROFESSOR OF POMOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE LIPPINGOTT'S FARM MANUALS Edited by K. C. DAVIS, Ph.D. SECOND EDITION REVISED PRODUCTIVE SWINE HUSBANDRY By GEORGE E. DAY, B.S.A. PROF. OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, CANADA. 96 illustrations. x11 + 303 pages. $1.75 net. SECOND EDITION REVISED PRODUCTIVE POULTRY HUSBANDRY By HARRY kk. LEWIS. B.S: POULTRY HUSBANDRYMAN, NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 330 illustrations. xxt + 536 pages. $2.00 net. SECOND EDITION REVISED PRODUCTIVE HORSE HUSBANDRY By CARL W. GAY, B.S.A. PROF. ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, CHAIRMAN ANIMAL HUSBANDRY SECTION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. 176 illustrations. xvt + 331 pages. $1.75 net. PRODUCTIVE ORCHARDING By FRED C. SEARS, MS. PROF. OF POMOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 157 illustrations. xiv + 314 pages. $1.75 net. PRODUCTIVE VEGETABLE GROWING By JOHN W. LLOYD, M.S.A. PROF. OF OLERICULTURE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 194 1llustrations. XI + 330 pages. $1.75 net. SECOND EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS By Faw WOLL, -Pa.D. PROF. OF ANIMAL NUTRITION, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 106 illustrations. xt + 375 pages. $1.75 net. SECOND EDITION COMMON DISEASES OF FARM ANIMALS Bu R. A.cGRAIG, D.VM. PROF. VETERINARY SCIENCE, PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 124 illustrations. x1t + 334 pages. $1.75 net. PRODUCTIVE FARM CROPS By E. G. MONTGOMERY, M.A. PROF. OF FARM CROPS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 204 illustrations. xix + 5OI pages. $1.75 net. PRODUCTIVE BEE KEEPING By FRANK C. PE&LLETT P STATE APIARIST OF TOWA. 135 tlustrations. xiv + 302 pages. $1.75 net. PRODUCTIVE DAIRYING By R. M. WASHBURN PROF. OF DAIRY HUSBANDRY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, 132 illustrations. xit + 303 pages. $1.75 net. von + = 2 iy ar = ‘ eons at 7 a + S VAP hy ele Bie = bh See) e.g 5 e's ~ " i > an met a4 aay? et APPLE TREE ucH A TREE WiLL RerurRN a Goop Rare or INTEREST ON A VALUATION OF ONE Hunprep DOLLARS PROFITABLE BALDWIN A t ie, LIPPINCOTT’S FARM MANUALS EDITED BY K. C. DAVIS, Px.D. (Corne1t) PRODUCTIVE ORCHARDING MODERN METHODS OF GROWING AND MARKETING FRUIT BY FRED: C. SEARS,’M.S. (Kansas StaTE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE) PROFESSOR OF POMOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 167 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT “Tf vain our toil, ; We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.’’ PorpE—Essay on Mar SECOND EDITION, REVISED PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PUBLISHED JUNE 2, 1914 REPRINTED OCTOBER 31, 1914 REPRINTED MARCH 29, 1915 REPRINTED JANUARY 15, 1916 REPRINTED OCTOBER 5, 1917 yd J Vv OCT 27 1317 Electrotyped and printed by J. B. Lippincott Company The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A. Ocia476787 es A c 7X To ROBERT W. STARR POMOLOGIST, ADVISER AND FRIEND, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR : ih ih ota aA, = ee bf ay ——~ | > +S So PREFACE PROBABLY every teacher who studies along any one line for a series of years becomes convinced that he has learned things that would be of value to men in this line of work. The writer offers this excuse for writing the present book, and perhaps the further justification might be added that for-a number of years he has had charge of a relatively large orchard where he believes that he has sifted out his theories and discarded those that ‘‘ won’t work.’’ He hopes that this belief will be shared by any who may attempt to follow his directions, ‘and that the book may prove a real help in solving some of the problems which every orchard owner, whether experienced or in- experienced, is certain to encounter. The writer also ventures to hope that the book may be helpful to instructors as a text for class use. He has attempted to cut out the non-essentials and to present the essentials in a reason- ably brief manner and yet with sufficient detail to be followed easily when one attempts to put them into practice. FRED C. SEARS MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AMHERST, January 1, 1914. Editor’s Note. THIS book is suited to the needs of College and Short Course Classes. Its practical nature as well as its philosophical treatment makes it a book to be desired by both fruit grower and student. High schools and special agricultural schools devoting some time to the particular study of horti- culture will find in this book the themes for their most profitable con- sideration. The reader will be favorably impressed with the spirit of the writer throughout, particularly on questions where authorities may differ; the vigor and novelty of treatment are refreshing to those who are familiar with older works on the subject. PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION PRODUCTIVE ORCHARDING was first printed early in January, 1914, less than four years ago, but since each year sees changes in the science and art of growing fruit, some of them slight and others of great importance, it has seemed well to revise. it. Some of the revisions have been suggested by others, and some have grown out of the continued experience of the author. For the many helpful suggestions that have been received, as well as for the many kindly expressions of good will toward the book, I wish to express my very sincere thanks. FRED C. SEARS AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, September 25, 1917. oe ei ve a — = « * F vo < . 4 Boas 7 . sa he aA a RE ey eth tape i abt PX et A ae CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE Prime GOTLOOR. FOR ORCHARDING. 0025125 20.8 see des we oes 1 OL TEPER APES DS] TT PCT ONR amare Se MR Mb oe al ape Oe en oa 8 SELECTING VARIETIES AND Buyinc NURSERY STOCK........ 24 Re ranrishinG, THM ORCHARD’... 2820.2. Nba ee ew hts 44 orrinie THE ORCHARD... 2 20 ot arenes awnw Sa eee sew 8s 66 HEA Ge OES els ssc. sb sks, iain s 2M & Si te ewe WS 77 OE STEMS Fg ot Teo Sea a Be SE 91 | ECE OT Se Mia Goce eT os a a a 100 OHIO REP te On. ret oe, SO aed tha ee ee hae 108 UENO RTE 1 RENE, Prag ea ee SeaRRE Me be iE RE ASS © AM) DP eg tle wn a a 119 PRE CHE NE ECMO 2 pleats oc isis Fete e ake e Bae cea Lae hn 142 ran anunee On PTT HGS 5.5 ss 0k adhe dace cles assee ee’ 163 SPRAYING APPARATUS....... 2 = in Ae eas eee 175 EIA PING NEA PICRIAT AG: oe os «,< ioc Ae eae dds ew ade eee 189 EMRE AM EMG UN AMNPATGNG:. @ 5: ¢ > os ure Spates ae ee Be ernie, oils a os 201 Pee APM! VOLT MOHCH ATU ¢ 405-0 cs s%ae cig bs bce 6 wc, 8 ae ee ot 212 PICKING, ANE El ANDEING: CO RUTD. <5 $526 te Gaede he ods ew sawed 229 EAP CLC poo Rc a ae 9 pe de> CU gage ga 245 Se Reihed ANI PAGING s/)5e s/c 4 cic eio a cetm ae wceaiceled seas. 258 DOES TES ka ee ine ee 2 Sine anne. 207 Py Uae IMPURE or on. Wate ener s. s,s cei eRe aMNENS cies (ele be S'S. @ itace 287 LAws Arrreriya. OBCHARDING’. .. = 5. 223..[\9) vo. oe ae Se bck 298 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE A Profitable Baldwin Apple Tree .................... Frontispiece 1. One Reason Why Orcharding Will Not be Overdone!............. 3 2. Another Reason Why Orcharding Will Not be Overdone.......... 5 3. Still Another Reason Why Orcharding Will Not be Overdone...... 6 aes cmt E eC ARIMC MIME Vo). 5 So).) «sc de gies are ce Bs aes ened 11 PPawedes Acouniry tor Orchard «...8 20.0.8 oe ee eo oen cas lek lous 13 Sen MER ETR MOM PREMIO R one Cotes ale ecrele's cit Sins ahs OP Ln aed Kis «6 26 PD FUSE C1 0] (ESOL al peer eg Ll gt a 28 Pee CHa AAC IMG WER GA TOME 5c lochs Mens aisles See 5s HR oo eee 39 Pee citecey tree wind ahOOr Mork (20.025. 2d Mies wm isin b ROL een e's 4] ie rsery thee hat Ist00" HeOAVY «0. ; snes ee ss oe ae cede Fee Meas 4] 11. Finishing the Land with a Planker Before Beginning to Lay off the RE 1970 lea RGR En ae gs oe Gk ae a. ne So ee ee et 46 12. Diagram Showing Method of Laying off a Field for Planting an oy TS RENT pet aes Sk ae et ee: Seen aaa, Sa! 48 13. Diagram for Measuring Boards. Drawn to Seale................ 49 14. Staking off Orchard by Means of Two Measuring Boards.......... 50 15, Planting Board for Locating Tree in Setting..................... 50 Bee nee di UE SeT LOC fe a2. Pesos ee ae awe ns Roun 6 51 17. A Load of Nursery Trees Ready for the Setting Gang............. 52 Bee a Or Hem eit PREPS lo. wd. cus ce amins 8S 'b aes a ve wae 52 Me teddy tose a?) wo Year Apple Tree... 22. 52.68 4. es cee. e se oc 54 wy ame Tree.as Shown in Fieure 19; Set... ..0.2 2.0.2... eke ete ee 54 21. Same Tree as Shown in Figures 19 and 20 After Pruning.......... 56 aria fe One-veat-old SWI 26.1525 oso ack cess aieu suave se ees 56 Bown b reme = Theme mete oles oY all -n &- otc, Sand eee 12 522 lossemsor Japanese Pilaf os los oe oo i ee 124 5S. A ossomis. Of urapean © liningees. cscs Lc... 6h pees ea eee 125 Ha. AC Hermes Just Det +> 4! Meteo Oi. 0). Sedo oe ee 125 Hoy. wuoben AP Mie LTE. ...'5 0s meee se = Bliss nc vlad ue ele see 127 5G... Dpradenagy 1m Tree. Soo aeete ee ota GW Suk es hades) Se 127 Bi, Sen DAM Elin “TCC. ean tie Hoe ok oss wo de 2 Re 129 56.2 Well-saaped, baldwin Apple mree o.oo. sa. sks eee 130 Fo OEM PURO «2 vat cone Se eats 1, oot bee ee eee 131 60: Good Saw for Small: Trees.) 05... ose. ") Thane ae eae 132 61. Heeellent-paw for Heayy Primes: oS oe se ee 132 G2. Goed paw ror Ordmary Prumine ye! 2.0. cw Woes ee ee 132 63. >Hxcelient Uy peof Priming Shears se fe. l soo oS aes eo en ee 133 64. Good iayne-ot: Pruning Water | he os. oie os wccis OF ba Ee ee 134 65. Good Combination Knife......... yep eereRRET eae eck 134 66 Long sib, bert an Proms ee aos). Bers... cts wa a oo oes ee ee 138 Ov. ‘Old:Siab Beginning to Decay... + .<'o kegs o's os stv Bs Sc coe nee eee 138 GS, AY Welsman. Wound ih So, eee ts ice oS Sh 2S. eee eee 139 69. A Well-made Wound Beginning to Heal......................... 139 70. A Well-made Wound That Has Entirely Healed Over............. 139 71Scab, or Black-spot of the"Applerc ).. fai .5 ins sree ele ee eee 166 72. Apple Carian 27 an

. 0.) see oh ee ob ca ee vw belo 213 92. Rather Difficult Tree to Renovate, One Which Will Require Several tee ca! VV CNG OO MER or. | a sy ho wee Hc. a Paet o a re etd MAR Tweed wit 214 93. Difficult Type of Tree to Renovate, but One Which Has Little eer CAMA a ct Ae ota HO tec. a pI Ae ee Dc ROAD ine Shee ae 214 4 Poor type of Orcharding for Renovating: . 20... 20. ds eee ee lanes 215 95. Old Orchard Before Work of Renovating Began.................. 218 96. Same Orchard, after Three Years’ Treatment.................... 218 97. Beginning Work of Renovating an Old Apple Tree................ 220 Se-eoameitee, After three Years’ freatment:: 0} ova. . sca se 220 99. Old Apple Tree Before Beginning Renovation.................... 221 100. Same Tree, De-horned After One Year’s Treatment............... 221 its pamel ree, Atter One Season's Growth... 0... 0.6 So... asae. 0. « 222 He same Cree; After Three Years’ Treatment... 2.426 20. ok os a ee 222 103. Trunk of a Tree Damaged by Too Much Nitrogen................ 223 104. An Orchard Damaged by Too Much Nitrogen................... 224 105. An Old, Neglected Orchard When Renovation Was Begun......... 226 105. came Orchard, After Five Years’. Treatment... 0)... 002s. 0 227 Morir ate G1 TP Minininie SOEATS.. ..).5Siss-) cekle ako cherie Ae ld baw ee 229 Mis boys | mmmne sapamese: Plums)... ue ad eee. iw Oe ess 230 109. Branch of Apple Tree That Was Thinned Twice.................. 231 LL SSL OS STalc acaba ays ay ch (2 as ea ggg ea 232 iene HI MER PeaNut S20 octet 5/s RAVEN eet Peay ae al ee war b 234 eae ot tear ts eewet ot, Ah OO ere OL oe hk oh acl Sa walk 235 113. Poor Type of Picking Basket for Fruit, Yet One Often Used....... 235 mere icinceunppies inte bags ct .. ecr5 0k ue be ae ek Pe eae 236 mar rickine Apples from. Well-loaded Tréesis.. 0.0.5. 6.6 cade es os 238 116. Peaches Picked into Oak Picking Baskets.......................- 240 Sens Oat eere: vt OCB ITNIET = es. Fi 2 sane s nss'w dies viclees-n dw she bmietsg e's KA OT 118. A Load of Apples on the Way to Market ....................040. 242 X1V 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 154. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. ILLUSTRATIONS Distributing Barrels in the Apple Orchard.) 0020 0.5..... 2). ee ees 243 A Good Type of Farm Storage Motises ovis ern eat oh cee 249 Storage Building at the Massachusetts Agricultural College... .... 252 Type of Apple Storage House Found in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotiaws<. } 5 dos Se ey ee ne 253 Diagram of Cross-section of Walls of Storage House in Figure 122.. 254 An Attractive Face to a Barrel of Apples....................4..- 261 Stemimnenss oo a Le, Seeds eee ree fae) ie 2 nel Ath see ee 262 Ordinary Barrel Press with a Bar Follower... .........<..0.-9.5% 263 Barrel Press with Circle Followen:vaive ois ones. ho os ee 263 Swing-bail Basket Used in Packing Apples in Barrels............. 264 Face of a Barrel of Apples Using 19 Apples 31% Inches in Diameter 266 Face of a Barrel of Apples Using 27 Apples 3 Inches in Diameter. . 266 Face of a Barrel of Apples Using 40 Apples 21% Inches in Diameter 266 Good Type of Packing Table for Boxing Apples.................. 267 Diagram Showing Method of Starting the 2-2 Pack............... 268 Diagram Showing Method of Starting the 3-2 Pack............... 268 Diagram Showing the Arrangement of Apples in the First and Third Layers of a 2-2 Box of Apples with 96 Apples in the Box 269 Diagram Showing the Arrangement of Apples in the Second and Fourth Layers of a 2-2 Box of Apples with 96 Apples in the Box 269 Diagram Showing the Arrangement of Apples in the First, Third and Fifth Layers of a 3-2 Box of Apples with 188 Apples in the POR oes 5 oS 5 Aen ae tts, fobs 8 sascha Aa i 271 Diagram Showing the Arrangement of Apples in the Second and Fourth Layers of a 3-2 Box of Apples with 188 Apples in the Box 271 Disgram Showing the>*“siraiwat Pack. 2. 5.6.).i<0l sb aie 272 A Western “Ly pe of Boxtiress ae ha. . 2s a oe ee 273 Excellent Type of Box Press which Can be Made at Home........ 274 The Greatest Single Problem in Marketing Fruit is to Have Good PS os 4 utente ROS oe ein 9 SSS ee 277 Boxes of Wester Apples sce esse ch okie «onic tants p<. gree 278 Pasteboard Carton for famcy opples.-. =... 3.8. . sg eee 280 Climax Peach Basket Used as a Retail Package for Apples......... 281 Climax Peach Basketwith Coveriom. 220... oc. 25.50 cts eee 282 Splint Basket Used dar Apples ss eee 2 2's heeded |. ad See 283 Attractive Package for the Hetau Trades... cts... 8s ee eee 283 Probably the Most Famous Fruit Label in Use................... 288 Good Type of Advertising Wrappers. £2... 00a 289 Good Type of Advertising for Apple Barrels...................... 290 Excellent ‘“‘Guarantee”’ Label from the Pacific Coast.............. 291 Another Guarantee Label from an Eastern Orchardist............. 291 Outside Cover ofan Advertisunr Theatlet .% itntce vs +) ee ce 292 A Magazine Advertisement that is Sure to Attract Attention..... 296 PRODUCTIVE ORCHARDING CHAPTER I THE OUTLOOK FOR ORCHARDING Ir the agricultural history of the twentieth century is ever written, the writer believes that one of the most significant features of such a history will be the account of the great interest in orcharding which developed during the latter part of the first decade of the century. That interest is still at its height. Men from all walks of life are turning toward orchard- ing as the one branch of farming in which they would like to engage. Wealthy men are setting out orchards (and commercial orchards) on their estates, farmers in orchard sections are en- larging their fruit plantations, while bank clerks, insurance men, and retired ministers are either investing their savings in small farms which are to be set out to fruit trees, or have bought an interest in some development scheme in the West. No wonder that there is a shaking of heads among the conservative element of our fruit growers and a wondering as to what the outcome will be. No wonder that even the most enthusiastic advocates of orcharding are speculating as to whether it may not be overdone. A Good Occupation.—But while there has undoubtedly been a wonderful interest in the fruit business in recent years, and while many who have gone into it, without sufficient thought and preparation, undoubtedly will be disappointed, and while we may even have to admit that the price of fruit is likely to de- cline, yet it still seems to the writer that for the right man, in the right place and with the right methods, the growing of fruit offers a healthful and delightful occupation with at least a reasonable assurance of satisfactory financial returns. Let us examine the situation briefly and see what ground there may be for such a belief and what conditions one must fulfil if he ex- pects to be successful. 2 THE OUTLOOK FOR ORCHARDING The Question of Over-production.—To begin with, are we in such immediate and pressing danger from over-production ? It is true that the papers are full of accounts of men who have started orchards; it is also true that any one who is sup- posed to know about such matters is besieged, either personally or by letter, by those who want to grow fruit, and it is probably true that where there is so much smoke there must be more or less fire. But the writer is very strongly of the opinion that the percentage of smoke is very large. Census Figures.—There are various methods by which we may judge of the imminence of this over-production danger, none of them perhaps very accurate but all of them suggestive. The first consists of the United States figures, Uncle Sam’s esti- mate on the subject. If we take the question of apples alone, which of course is the big end of the subject, we find first that the production has steadily declined since 1896. Here are the esti- mates from 1895 to 1911. 1895—60,500,000 barrels 1896—69,000,000 barrels 1897—41,000,000 barrels 1898—28,500,000 barrels 1899—58,500,000 barrels 1900—57,000,000 barrels 1901—26,970,000 barrels 1902—46,025,000 barrels 1904—45,360,000 barrels 1905—24,300,000 barrels 1906—38,280,000 barrels 1907—29,540,000 barrels 1908—25,850,000 barrels 1909—25,415,000 barrels 1910—23,825,000 barrels 1911—28,600,000 barrels 1903—42,626,000 barrels Are not these figures tremendously significant and do they not seem to indicate that it will be several years before we get back even to our former high-water mark? And we must not forget that at the same time that the production of apples has been declining the population has been increasing, so that it will require many more apples than 69,000,000 barrels to pro- vide as many per capita as we had in 1896. Another significant fact along the same line, which is brought out by the census figures, is in relation to the apple trees of the country. There were in 1910 in round numbers fifty million less bearing apple trees than in 1900 and only sixty-five million trees SOME ORCHARDS ABANDONED 3 not yet in bearing. So that when all the trees in the country in 1910 had come into bearing, there would be only fifteen million more than in 1900, provided no trees died in the meantime. But every one knows that they are dying by the thousand every year. Even in relatively good orchard sections one may see many and many an orchard like that shown in Figure 1 which is already practically a negligible quantity so far as production is con- aes ee Fic. 1.—One reason why orcharding will not be overdone! An orchard killed by scale and neglect. There are thousands like it. cerned. And in the really poor sections, particularly if the San José scale is there, such orchards are the rule and not the exception. Some Orchards Abandoned.—Passing now from Uncle Sam’s estimates to the opinions of less important persons, we find it a very general opinion among people who have given the matter some thought, that a great many young orchards which were set out with high hopes a few years ago are already abandoned as hopeless. The writer himself can think of dozens. This was inevitable, considering the people who set them out, men and 4 THE OUTLOOK FOR ORCHARDING women who knew absolutely nothing of orcharding except what they read in the magazines or daily papers. Go into any section except our very best orchard regions and you will find plenty of examples like the orchard shown in Figure 1. One need have little fear of the competition of such an orchard as this. Insects and Diseases.—Another thing which will help to delay this dreaded time of over-production is the canstantly increasing list of orchard pests. Men have attempted to compute the loss from this source and have placed it among the millions of bushels. But whether we accept this estimate or not, no one who has seen such things at work as the bitter rot of the apple and the brown rot of the peach and plum or the codling moth of the apple and the curculio of the peach and plum ean fail to realize that the loss is tremendous. Slow Returns.—Still another factor which is always going to act as a brake on orchard setting is the length of time required to bring trees to profitable bearing. If a man starts in the dairy business he can buy a cow and sit right down and milk her (always provided of course that she is giving milk), so that his income begins at once; or if he starts in the trucking business it requires only a season to get returns. But an orchard is a long- time investment, and relatively few people are going to have the patience and the pocketbook to wait for returns (Fig. 2). No Advertising.—If one is cataloging the hopeful factors in the orchard situation, he certainly should not omit the fact that up to date there has been almost nothing done in the way of advertising. If red apples were as persistently advertised as some patent medicines, the supply never would overtake the demand. This is one of the improvements which ought to be undertaken next, and the writer believes so emphatically in its value that he has devoted an entire chapter to the subject. Bad Marketing.—If one wants further hope for the future of the orchard business, think of the way in which most of our fruit is marketed at the present time! If any one can think of methods better calculated to decrease consumption than those frequently in use he is a genius. Poor fruit, poorly handled and worse packed, is shipped into the market without the slightest THE RIGHT MAN 5 regard for the demand at that particular time and place. What would happen to any other manufacturer if he followed the methods of many of our apple manufacturers? Bankruptcy sure and speedy! It simply shows what a good business orchard- ing is, that it has kept up under the methods too often in vogue. The Right Man.—We have said that for the right people carrying on an orchard by right methods and in the right place the future is anything but dark. Let us close this brief review of the orchard situation with a word on this desirable combina- tion. Who are the right people? Anybody with a love for the Fic. 2.—Another reason why orcharding will not be over-done. This young orchard has been set five years and some of the trees are little if any larger than wnen they were set. business and who has the knowledge, or who can hire somebody with the knowledge, to do the work. ‘To begin with, the man brought up on the farm has an immense advantage over the man who is city born and bred. He knows already the practical de- tails of farming. The writer is always doubtful about the suecess of one who knows nothing of farm life. It takes a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and hard work to overcome the handicap. Here is an example of the kind of man who ought not to go into orcharding. He wrote to our Agricultural College, saying that he expected to set a large orchard, would use fifty thousand trees, and since the nurserymen must make a lot of 6 THE OUTLOOK FOR ORCHARDING money out of their business did we not think it would be well for him to propagate his own trees. And in the event that we agreed with him as to the advisability of this, would it not be well for him to ‘‘ start the apple seeds in the house during the winter so as to have the little trees well under way by spring.’’ While the writer does not want to discourage unduly the city man who wants an orchard, it does seem to him that few of them can qualify as ‘‘ the right man.’’ Fic. 3.—Still another reason why orcharding will not be over-done. The owner of thi: orchard was a liveryman and wanted hay! He had the good sense not to try to raise botL hay and apples on the same land. Now while there are, of course, many exceptions, it would seem that two classes of orchard ventures are especially likely to be successful. One of these is that of the farmer in an orchard section who already has his living assured and who decides to add to his orchard plantings. And the other is that of the man who has money enough to go into orcharding on a reasonably large scale so that he can devote his time to it if he has the knowledge himself or if not can hire an expert foreman. As a rule the thing for the inexperienced man to do, if he is sure that he wants an orchard, is to work with some practical orchard man until he acquires a reasonable knowledge of the business. Right Methods are only less important than right men. The writer has tried, in the following pages, to suggest some of the RIGHT METHODS 7 things which he thinks are of importance. And even the best of men with the best of methods cannot succeed if they ignore too much the question of the right place. An uncongenial soil, a frosty location, undue exposure to fierce winds, add just so much to the unavoidable handicap of the man who grows fruit. QUESTIONS 1. Discuss the interest in orcharding during the first decade of the twentieth century. 2. How did the production of apples vary from 1895 to 1911? 3. What are the principal factors which keep down the production of apples? 4. What type of man is most likely to be successful as an orchardist? 5. Give some examples of successful orcharding that you have seen. 6. Tell of unsuccessful orchard ventures that you have seen or read about and give the reasons for failure. CHAPTER IT ORCHARD LANDS WHILE there is considerable variation in the type of soil re- quired by different classes of orchard fruits, and while in a few cases we have even worked out, with considerable accuracy, the soil preferences of individual varieties, yet it is surprising how nearly the ideal orchard conditions for most fruits agree. For example, they all agree in being subject to damage by winds, none of them thrive well on wet lands, and all of them are safer on lands which are not liable to frosts. We may therefore feel fairly safe in generalizing on orchard lands, and the following score card has been worked out for use in classes. In this is a list of the points which ought to be included in an examination of an orchard site, and an effort is made to estimate the relative importance of these different points. The score card is, of course, by no means ideal, but it does include the most important items and it ought to be suggestive to a prospective orchard planter. Score Card for Orchard Site Counts. Ae ER Seana bes nagcens Sarai s Gaus Anat amr ee rag ce Th le en ere anys eee GA TSUMIACE YSOID 0 lars 7 elctno yas Sse fatale eli pda ewes ate 15 1. Fertility; chemical] character; too fertile or not fertile enough. 2. Adaptation to fruit grown. 3. Ease of working. 4. Sour? 5. Humus content. Us MOUDSOUL RSet pate gata, Sot ae Bias deters gear 15 1. Ease of penetration by roots. 2. Fertility; pure sand vs. gravelly clay. By Water @raimare op iacita ts ce Oe eo’ aka nee cacti eee 30 @. seurines draiiage >. ,c2 co otk een eet a 10 1. Good? Does water stand? 2. Too much? (a) Washing, loss of soil and fertility. (6) Loss of water. MNES MeCN © Sto) cot eases a, Seine i ai'e a ds aj aoe 0 20 1. Enough? Is soil soggy? 2. Too much? Is soil too dry? Pee ems PMerIG CTAINACE 2.1.56. 6 ee ee ce eee ees 15 a. Will cold air drain off? Is there slope enough? b. Does cold air come down from slopes above; is orchard at foot of a long slope? c. Is there any obstruction at the bottom of orchard to hold cold air? RE ME CGME SING” (53). a.. es Ga cceis sa salere Oe st asa at 15 Meevvaul reference to: Sul 2020 ius. ena es tee 5 1. Ripening and coloring of fruit. 2. Frost injury on eastern slope. 3. Sun-seald. b. With reference to winds 10 1. Does land slope towards prevailing winds? MR eile fens cota es sid Btls hidisiischastakes Ute dinbans 4 10 . Nearby and distant. . Kinds of trees. . Distance away that is best. . Is it open at bottom? . Is it owned by proprietor of orchard? Sao, SS Age AA why eee eh ke oe ceeds. tek ee, ce 100 100 Many of the points given are self-explanatory, yet a short dis- cussion may help with most cf them. A. Soil—a. Surface Soil—1. The fertility of the soil. while not as important as the general character of the soil, is still well worth considering. If the land is ‘‘ run out ”’ it is by no means worth as much for an orchard as though it were in ‘‘ good heart.’’ Of course it can be brought up again in fertility, but this takes time and money and the writer has started enough orchards to learn that poor, run-out soil is a big handicap in developing growthy and shapely trees. To overcome it, one ought to have some barn manure available and one has to study much more carefully what kinds of commercial fertilizers to use and when to use them. 2. The adaptation of the soil to the fruit to be grown. If one is growing peaches, he prefers a light or medium loam, and if he must depart from this he would rather have a sandy soil than a 10 ORCHARD LANDS heavy clay. If he is growing pears he wants, as a class, much heavier soils than for peaches; usually a fairly heavy clay loam. This question of the adaptability of certain soils to certain classes or varieties of fruits is one which has only, within the last few years, been studied at all seriously. More and better work has been done on apple soils than any others. Near the close of this chapter the matter is discussed more in detail. 3. Hase of working the soil. One would discount a soil that was stony or rocky, or that was full of stumps or was a very heavy clay. Personally the writer thinks there is a great deal to be said in favor of rather light lands. They will not hold fer- tilizers as well as heavier soils, and some people think they do not hold moisture as well, though the writer doubts it. But they work so much more easily and there is so much less danger of injuring the soil or of damaging the trees if the soil isn’t handled just right. With a heavy clay, one frequently has to wait days — after a heavy rain before he can get on the land to work it; and there is so much more likely to be winter injury to the trees if the soil happens to have been cultivated a little too late, or if too much nitrogen has been used, or even when everything has been handled right, when the winter happens to be especially severe. 4. Is the soil sour? If it is, in most cases lime has to be applied to secure the best results. There is quite a common | (and the writer believes a well-founded) prejudice in favor of soil of a limestone formation. And when one ean not get this the next best plan seems to be to apply lime in some form. 5. Is there plenty of humus in the soil or has it been worked out till the physical condition has been injured? If the soil lacks humus it must be supplhed. It might seem like a simple proposi- tion to get humus back into the soil, but unless one has barn . manure available he will find it an up-hill matter with either very heavy or very light soils. The catch crop intended to plow in simply will not grow. And one has a chance to exercise a lot of ingenuity and patience to get things started right. And the soil which requires all this is not as good an orchard soil by just so much as the one which is already in shape. The impor- tance of plenty of humus in an orchard soil is only beginning to be realized. WATER DRAINAGE at b. Subsoil.—Under this head there are two main points to be considered: First, the ease of penetration by the roots of the trees, and, second, the fertility of the soil. Lands with impervious subsoils are not satisfactory for any fruits, and a good, medium, gravelly subsoil is more fertile than a pure sand. Cultivating 2:7 05. ss sa epee Oe ee ee eee 4.50 5. Cover crop—buckwheat seed and sowing .......... : 1.00 6. Clearing away trash from trees in autumn to eo WIGS. GAMAGE o> pc bia Shae stake we layla lea ote eae aed 00 $30.28 SECOND YEAR I< PG os oe ol eter 2 Sm ce OR a ore es cee $2.50 2. Fertilizing (same as first year except double the TIGTOMEL), § 2 Lio eto weten 5 o bin Saeed ba eon tae ee 1.75 aHittineg “the land wwaith? disey 0) eos aa oe eee eee 3.60 BSAC ELV ALERON) 5702s tos ait eo Baron ali Rages oats eee ee 4.50 BoEIOOINE Whe sc ttp ay wage a Heme tact casee cite nik, © renee Cena ae 1.00 6. .Cover crop—cow horn "Gurmips en! ! ss tae aoe Td 4. Clearing: away trash in ‘awbwmn (72) Po... 32S ots ere 00 $14.60 THIRD YEAR Le So) 5005 112 ah eee PR Ia coer ees AER nu Stig se te eS A 4 $3.00 2.. Fertilizine—double second. year . 0). s...u. 02.00% = meee 3.90 Se eli bbine Ene TANG gic. kc 5's Shoiciga UStepee geek shal ae ees She eee ee 3.60 A; SCUIGIV ARIS, unl Sea yet es oe ene oe eee 4.50 ends (0210s a Benn aa a Merona eae sper t Pens oe nee 1.00 Gi. Sprayinig~ ior! San (José: stale (20.0% GaGa Seer 4.10 T. MOOVET TEEOP) +3228 sta oles 9 St ose ene ec ed 1.00 8, Clearing “away. “trash: :. jes. .e8 Sens ate wernt eee 50 $21.20 FOURTH YEAR Total cost only slightly more than third year. FIFTH YEAR Ls RPURIMes sy. Xo pte SE Ses PAOD ol edie cae one ee $4.50 22 CEE PA UI sR cos tage ently Wed Whee Seat aa Pa Sa .) ee Ss. Nitting: the and 2% +.) Bhar) ie) oe eee eee 3.60 AP CAN ETE IS : Oo. Chg io gait aeds ae Bb 4 ta. Saari Ree i 4.50 5. HIOSIN 2 oie st Aa ee Sc MME ee ote Ree an ee 1.06 G. Spraying ye 51h i9.<"-8 a vey + gaye 4 a 8 4 ey ee 5.25 i. Cover crop—ermmson: Glover (3402 wh aie eee eee 1.20 QUESTIONS 65 QUESTIONS . Discuss the preparation of the land for an orchard. Describe three general methods of arranging the trees in an orchard. . Give the details of a good method of laying off an orchard. What is a “planting board,” and how is it helpful? . Describe the operation of heeling in trees. Give the arguments on “ fall vs. spring” planting. Give the main arguments in favor of high heading of orchard trees. . What are the arguments in favor of low heading? . What orchards in your section would you classify as high headed? What low headed ? . Give some idea of the best planting distances for different orchard trees. . Discuss the use of “ fillers” in an orchard. . Give some idea of cost of starting a young orchard in your own section. CHAPTER V CROPPING THE ORCHARD ONE of the questions which comes home very forcibly to the man who attempts to develop an orchard of any size is that of growing companion crops in the orchard while it is young. Shall this be done and if so what crops shall be used? The idea of such a crop is to help defray the cost of the orchard, and con sequently it must either be a crop, such as mangels or turnips, Presnnens : : oe Fria. 28.—Late potatoesin a young peach orchard. Anexcellent crop when rightly managed which can be used profitably by the owner on the farm, or else it must be a crop such as beans or soybeans, which ean be dis- posed of for cash. The general farmer who keeps stock has, therefore, a distinct advantage over the orchard specialist in the choice of these companion crops, because a number of the best of them are such as will work in very nicely with the plans for feeding stock or keeping dairy cows. For several years, say four or five as a rule, it is greatly to the advantage of the young trees if the orchard is cropped, pro- 66 THE IDEAL COMPANION CROP 67 vided, of course, that the proper crops are chosen. This is espe- cially true on general farms where there are other crops than the orchard to compete for the time of men and teams. If the potato field is in the orchard, both are cultivated together, and the trees are not only well cultivated, but receive the benefit of the fertilizer left over from the potato crop (Fig. 28). On the other hand, if the potato field is in one place and the orchard is in another, the potatoes frequently get the cultivation when labor is scarce, while the cultivation of the orchard is either deferred Fig. 29.—Soybeans as a companion crop. This is one of the best crops for a young orchard, enriching the land and usually giving profitable returns. to a more convenient time or omitted altogether, because the farmer knows that he will get no crop if his potatoes are not cultivated while his trees will do something even with very in- different culture. The ideal companion crop would have the following char- acteristics, and though the ideal does not exist we can frequently come fairly close to it: 1. The crop must be profitable, either because it can be sold for cash or because it can be fed with profit to the stock on the farm (Fig. 29). This point, of course, is imperative. The list 68 CROPPING THE ORCHARD of crops which are admissible will vary greatly with the owner’s circumstances. As already suggested the farm on which stock is kept can profitably use a number of crops which can not be grown on the special fruit farm. And these crops happen to be among the most satisfactory in their relation to the orchard. The man who is in the trucking business, or who is so situated that he can handle truck crops, has another large selection of crops which are almost ideal so far as the orchard is concerned, but these crops can not usually be grown in sections far from markets. It follows then that the orchard specialist has the smallest number of companion crops from which to choose. 2. The erop should be one which requires cultivation. There is absolutely no question about this unless it be in the case of crops sown late in the season which are really cover crops rather than companion crops. This matter of cultivation is a point frequently overlooked by men who grow crops in their orchards, but we are speaking of the ideal crops now. And the more thorough the cultivation which is required by the crop the better for the orchard. 3. It ought to be a crop which does not require late stirring of the soil, say in August or September. September work is particularly objectionable. The philosophy of this point will be seen on a moment’s reflection, and the importance of it has been demonstrated to the writer over and over again, though always, he is glad to say, by other people. The young trees make their gerowth early in the season and by August, and still more by September, they are ‘‘ sobering down ’’ and thickening their cells and beginning to get ready for winter. Now suppose one is | erowing such a erop as early potatoes for example. Just at the point where the trees want quiet the owner comes in with his gang of men or his potato digger and gives the soil the most thorough working it has had since the spring plowing. The re- sult is that the trees are urged into new growth, new food is made available for them and they go merrily forward till cold weather comes on and checks them short. There is no time then to prepare for the more severe weather which follows and consequently the cambium or growing layer, between the bark THE IDEAL COMPANION CROP 69 and wood, is soft and tender and no more able to resist freezing than a potato or a turnip. It is therefore killed outright or severely damaged and the next year the trees, though they may leaf out, will be found in a very bad condition. Many of them will probably die, and others might as well do so, for they will be so badly crippled as to be of little value. 4, The companion crop should be one which does not take from the soil exactly the same food elements as the trees them- selves require. This is aimed especially at nursery stock, which for several reasons is a peculiarly objectionable crop, but it Rese * Fic. 30.—Pea-beans as an orchard crop. This is another excellent crop from the stand- point of the orchard. probably apples with more or less force to all fruit crops. Of course this is a difficulty which can be obviated to a certain extent by applying extra fertilizer, but it is far better to choose some other crop. 5. It should be an annual crop. Anyone who has ever attempted to crop an orchard with even a biennial crop like strawberries, or still worse with a perennial one like raspberries, will appreciate the importance of this point. Cross-cultivation is usually entirely prevented at'ter the first year, the block grows more and more weedy and the trees in the block show more and more distinetly the handicap under which they are working, till 70 | CROPPING THE ORCHARD very soon one may easily pick out, at a considerable distance, the section of the orchard where the perennial crop is located by the small size of the trees and the light color of their leaves. Of course it is possible by extra effort in the way of hand labor, and by extra fertilizing with good barn manure, to overcome to a certain extent the bad effects of the crop, but these are expensive methods to use and to a very large extent they take away any profit which might accrue from the crop. Usually they are not even attempted. It is much better to use an annual crop which is cleared off the land each year and which thus allows ot thorough preparation of the soil each spring. 6. Lastly, and least important, though still well worth con- sidering, the crop should be one which makes its growth at some other time than that in which the orchard makes its most vigorous erowth. This is one reason why beans, for example, are to be preferred to currants. The beans are not planted until the trees are at the height of their growth, and they do not begin to draw at all heavily on the soil moisture and plant food until the trees have come to a point where they can easily and even advan- tageously spare a part of both moisture and plant food. The currants, on the other hand, come along at precisely the same time as the trees and compete with them step by step for both fertility and water. Area Reserved for Trees.—It ought to be said, before going farther, that in any scheme of cropping the orchard a certain portion of land must be reserved for the exclusive use of the trees. This will vary with different crops and with the age of the trees, but as a rule a strip six or eight feet wide along each row of trees should be reserved the first year and this should be enlarged year by year as the trees grow. Lists of Companion Crops.—With the above requirements in mind the writer has chosen the following list of companion crops and has attempted to arrange them under three classes—good, bad and indifferent. They are also arranged in the different sections roughly in the order of their value from the standpoint of the orchard, the most objectionable ones coming last. GOOD COMPANION CROPS 71 Good Companion Crops.—l. Beans.—Any variety will be satisfactory to the orchard, but especially the white pea-bean. The soybean is also admirable. There is almost no objec- tion to these crops. They are usually profitable, are sown late, add nitrogen to the soil, and no damage arises from their use. When removed from the orchard the root systems are usually left in the soil, which adds both humus and nitrogen. 2. Squash is another excellent crop, coming along with a rush late in the season when the orchard ought to ‘‘ down,’’ sober never competing with the trees, and frequently giving Fig. 31.—Squashes as an orchard crop. They are an excellent crop from the standpoint of the orchard and where the owner can handie them rightly are usually prottabie. good financial returns. It can be marketed in a wholesale way, which is not true of all crops and which is frequently a decided advantage to the orchard owner (Fig. 31). 3. Cabbage—This is another decidedly satisfactory com- panion crop. It usually commands a fair price and can be handled in car-load lots if the orchard is of some size. It is nearly ideal so far as its effect on the trees is concerned. The only objection to it is that it requires cultivation later than the trees do, but if the strip already spoken of is reserved there is usually no trouble. ie CROPPING THE ORCHARD 4. Turnips and Mangels.—These are both excellent crops from the standpoint of the orchard, but of course are not ‘‘ cash ’’ crops as a rule and must usually be restricted to the man who keeps stock. It might be possible in some eases to erow them for a neighbor who keeps stock, but generally they must be fed on the place. 5. Late Potatoes—The writer would bar out early potatoes, unless a very wide strip is reserved along the tree rows, which is Fig. 32.—Potatoes in a bearing apple orchard. They make a good orchard crop, but in this case are planted too close to the trees. an unnecessary waste of land. But late potatoes are dug so late in the season that they do not tend to prolong the growth of the trees and they are generally a profitable and satisfactory crop. They require good cultivation and high fertilizing and it is rare that they do not show a reasonable profit (Fig. 32). 6. Truck Crops, such as spinach, beets, peas, and carrots, are all good crops and if handled carefully will generally give FAIRLY SATISFACTORY CROPS tla fine results. They need good land and good cultivation, which help out the orchard trees. One difficulty with them which ought to be guarded against by the orchard owner is the fact that they usually require a good deal of barn manure and other forms of nitrogen, and it is a very easy matter to get the land too rich for the best interest of the young trees. It would probably be better not to use them year after year in the same block of orchard but to practise rotation of crops, following truck crops with squash and this with beans. 7. Corn.—There is some prejudice against corn, and perhaps rightly, because it is a rank feeder and is likely to get more than its share of food and moisture; also because its great height tends to shade the young trees. But if it is not grown too close to the trees and if the rows are run north and south so that the sun ean get at the trees when its power is greatest, the objections will usually be overcome, and the writer knows from experience that it may work out satisfactorily. It is a crop that is usually profit- able. If the farm is an orchard proposition pure and simple, the erain from corn can be fed to teams on the place and even the fod- der may be used in this way in winter, if there is no winter work for the teams. Probably it would be better to restrict this crop to popcorn or to flint varieties which do not make tall stalks, and it is perhaps better not to grow corn after the third year of the orchard, though there are many exceptions to these suggestions. 8. Buckwheat.—This is really a combination cover crop and companion crop, but is included here because it is a reasonably satisfactory money crop to be grown in the orchard. Of course, in order to get the money out of it one has to cut the crop and remove it from the orchard, which is strictly against the rules for a cover crop. But that is something the grower has to learn to do ‘‘ when necessary,’’ if he is going to run an orchard. The difficult thing to learn is when it is necessary. Fairly Satisfactory Crops.——9. Currants and Gooseberries, if the bushes are set in rows both ways to allow for cultivation, are often quite satisfactory. The fact that they are perennial and that they make their growth each season at exactly the same time as the orchard is the chief objection to them. But they re- 74 CROPPING THE ORCHARD quire good culture and fertilizing if they are to be profitable, which makes them acceptable to the young trees. They do not spread, which makes them at least less objectionable than some other crops. 10. Strawberries.—For young orchards, where there is still plenty of room, these are not bad (Fig. 33). But they tie up the land for two years at least, and with many growers much longer than that. They can not be cross-cultivated, so that the tree E > z 3 . C = + Sees a i ey Fic. 33.—Strawberries in a young peach orchard. They make a fairly good crop for very young orchards, but inveriere with cross-cultivation, as they occupy the land at least two years. rows are apt to become foul with weeds and the trees to show the lack of thorough cultivation by the second year. If the beds are held for more than one erop of berries, the damage to the trees is very markedly increased. Personally the writer would not use strawberries except during the first and second years of the orchard and even then there are many other crops to be preferred. A great point in favor of strawberries is the fact that they generally pay well. This is something that will be appreciated by the man who tries to develop a good sized orchard, POOR COMPANION CROPS 15 The question of the advisability of growing strawberries in an orchard practically narrows down to whether the orchard is to be intensively cultivated or not. If it is, then with a little extra work the tree rows can be kept clean. On the other hand, if the owner wants to manage the orchard with as little labor as possible he will almost certainly fail to keep it even reasonably clean with strawberries growing in it. 11. Asparagus is not often used and has the serious objection that it must stand in the orchard for a number of years, yet cases are occasionally seen where it is used with very good success. Poor Companion Crops.—12. Raspberries and blackberries ought practically to be debarred ‘as orchard’ crops. The long period that they have to stand, the difficulty or impossibility of eross-cultivation, and the fact that they sucker so freely are the chief objections. These can be overcome by hand labor, by barn manure, and by the free use of other fertilizers. Ordinarily, however, it is the young trees that are overcome and not the difficulties. 13. Nursery Stock—The growing of this crop in the orchard is seldom practised and almost always with regret so far as its effect on the orchard trees is concerned. It grows at exactly the same time as the youny orchard trees, takes out the same fertilizer elements, and uses moisture at the same time. And it usually stands two or three years. On the whole it is much better to put the nursery somewhere else. 14. Grains of all kinds should be strictly ruled out. They have only one redeeming feature and that is that they are annual crops. But they are not cultivated, they prevent cross-cultivation of the trees, they rob the trees of moisture, and the part of the orchard where they are grown will always show the injurious effects, at the time and frequently for several years after. 15. Hay.—Never use it. It is the last crop in our list and is placed there because it is regarded as ‘‘ the limit.’’ There are a few sod enthusiasts who claim to be, and probably are, success- ful in starting young trees in sod. But most growers, even though they resort to sod later on, start their trees under culti- 76 CROPPING THE ORCHARD vation. Hay competes at every step with the young trees, robbing them of moisture and plant food when they most need them, and providing excellent conditions for injurious insects of various kinds, and when the hay is harvested the trees are liable to all sorts of accidents from the mowing machine, the rake, and the hay wagons. If you are tempted to use hay, by all means resist the temptation! QUESTIONS 1. What are the characteristics of an ideal companion crop for the orchard? 2. How many years should such crops be used in the orchard? 3. How should the land along the tree rows be treated? Discuss each of the following as companion crops for orchards: 4. Beans. 12. Currants and gooseberries, 5. Squash. 13. Strawberries. 6. Cabbage. 14. Asparagus. 7. Turnips and mangels. 15. Raspberries and blackberries. 8. Potatoes. 16. Nursery stock. 9. Truck crops. 17. Grains. 10. Corn. 18. Hay. vw 11. Buckwheat. CHAPTER VI ORCHARD CULTURE Three Methods.—Having set out the orchard the next ques- tion to be decided is what type of culture it is to receive. On this point orchard men are divided into three camps: First, there are a few men like Mr. Grant Hitchings, of New York, and Mr. A. A. Marshall, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, who practise what may be ealled ‘‘ sod culture,’’ that is all the grass grown in the orchard is simply cut and allowed to lie on the land as a mulch. Of course this mulch becomes thicker year by year, forming a better and better protection against the loss of moisture by evaporation and as it decays adding humus fo the soil. Second, there are the men who practise clean cultivation of the soil. By far the greatest number of really successful orchard- ists belong to this class. There are endless variations in the method as practised by different men, but the main features would be plowing the orchard in the spring, clean cultivation up to mid-summer, and then seeding down to a cover crop. Lastly, there is a very large class who have their orchards in sod but who can not, by any stretch of the imagination, be said to practise sod culture. They simply have their orchards in hayfields. Perhaps it is only fair to add that there are a few men who have their orchards on relatively heavy land and who practise generous fertilizing who are quite successful in raising both hay and apples on the same land. But their conditions and their characters’ are so exceptional that it is dangerous to even mention them. Methods Vary with Conditions—There is no question what- ever that the type of culture which it is best to adopt varies with conditions. Under most conditions cultivation will most emphatically give the best results (Fig. 34). And yet there are enough orchards where sod culture is practised to show that it can be made successful. And there are many cases where cultiva- (is 78 ORCHARD CULTURE tion is out of the question and where sod culture must be adopted because it is the only rational method that will fit the cireum- stances. The great difficulty is that this method, to be most successful, requires not only peculiar soil conditions but still more a peculiar type of man, and it is rare that one finds both the man and the conditions on the same farm. | However, the question is not by any means settled, and therefore it is important to sum up the points in favor of each ot these methods as advanced by their advocates. Fic. 34.—Clean cultivation in an old renovated orchard. With most men and under most conditions cultivation will give the best results. Sod Culture-——For sod culture the principal arguments advanced are: 1. It: is not so expensive a method of caring for the soil. This is certainly correct, as the only expense is the cutting of the grass in the orchard once or twice a year (Fig. 35). But unless it can be shown that with this less expense the grower gets the same or nearly the same net returns this is not a very strong argument. 2. The fruit will keep longer. This would apply to apples and pears in particular, and is probably also true. The fruit SOD CULTURE ™ 79 is usually smaller than that grown under cultivation, which means a more solid flesh that naturally does not break down so soon. While keeping quality is not so important as it was when storage facilities were poorer, still it is certainly worth considering. ‘ 3. The fruit is more highly colored. Probably this will hold good as a general rule because the tree under sod culture is likely to ripen up more quickly and the fruit is therefore given Fic. 35.—Mowing the grass in a sod orchard. The difficulty comes in resisting the temp- tation to rake it and put it in the barn. earlier in the season the maturity which favors coloring in the autumn. Cultivated orchards sometimes are given too late eculti- vation or otherwise supplied with too much nitrogen, which favors late growth and consequently poor color. Also the foliage on trees that are cultivated is usually more dense, which in itself will retard coloring by keeping off the sun. 4. Trees can be headed lower when grown in sod. This may or may not be true. If the reasons for low heading already given are accepted, it probably makes little difference whether 80 ORCHARD CULTURE the trees are in sod or are cultivated. But with the commonly accepted notions about cultivation and height of heading, the contention is probably correct. Few people who have done the work in an orchard fail to realize the value of the low tree. 5. There is less washing on side hills. This is an argument that appeals to the writer more strongly than almost any other. There are thousands of acres all through the best apple growing sections of the United States on land which is too steep to admit of cultivation on account of the washing of the soil. If these lands are to be used for orchards, and they are frequently better adapted to orcharding than to any other purpose, they must be kept in sod. 6. The land is in better condition for the spring spraying and pruning. In sections where a spring spraying is necessary, as with San José scale, and where the weather of spring is variable, as it is in most orchard countries, this is really an im- portant advantage and will appeal to the man who has slopped about in the mud in either spraying or pruning. It would not in itself justify one in adopting the sod method, but it certainly deserves some weight. It is sufficiently difficult to get really satisfactory work in either pruning or spraying, and anything that will assist will be welcomed by the man who has had experience along these lines. 7. The windfalls are kept in better condition. This is not of much importance with winter apples, but with early varieties and with pears it is frequently of decided importance. Men who have sod-mulch orchards claim that their windfalls are practically as valuable as the hand picked fruit and while the writer does not accept this view entirely he does believe that a good soft mulch is a great help. Some other claims are made, but those mentioned are really the most important ones. Those which seem to have the most weight are the prevention of washing on hillsides, the fact that the fruit is likely to have better color and to keep longer, and that the expense of caring for the orchard is less. Of course the advocates of cultivation attempt to demolish this last argu- ment by calling the sod method a cheap affair anyway and by CULTIVATION 8] claiming that their method gives so much more fruit that they ean afford to have the extra expense. Cultivation.—Now let us look at the arguments which are advaneed in favor of cultivation: 1. It conserves soil moisture better. It is difficult to see how any reasonable man can doubt this. The sod advocates attempt to offset it by saying that the sod will so much more effectively prevent the rains from running off that they can afford to lose some moisture, but this argument does not quite ‘“ hold water ’’ when put to a test. As a matter of fact several of the arguments in favor of sod, such as better color and better keeping quality, are based directly on the fact that the sod orchard does not have as much moisture. When one remembers how all-important moisture is to the orchard and how frequently fruit and trees are damaged from the lack of it, he can appreciate the importance of the moisture argument as advanced by the cultivation men. It seems to be the very backbone of the cultiva- tion side of the controversy. With lght soils of poor water- holding capacity, this one argument seems about all that it is necessary to produce. The soils and locations are relatively few where lack of moisture does not, at some time during the year, interfere with the best development of a crop of fruit. 2. It renders soil fertility more available; or perhaps we should reverse that and say it renders more soil fertility avail- able. It does this by letting in the air and moisture and generally by keeping the soil conditions favorable for chemical and bacterial action. This is a point not always conceded, but the arguments for cultivation seem very conclusive. With the high cost of fertility it is certainly a strong argument. 3. Cultivation permits the use of leguminous cover crops to furnish nitrogen for the orchard. This is also a strong argument and one not easily disproved. It is quite possible through such crops as clovers and soybeans to add all the nitrogen necessary to an orchard soil. Since nitrogen is by far the highest priced element in fertilizers, a method that ‘‘ works while you sleep ”’ is certainly welcome to the man who pays the bills. The only chance for the sod-culture orchardist in this direction is the 6 82 ORCHARD CULTURE use of clovers in seeding down and these do not as a rule persist very long in the orchard sod. 4. There is less trouble in cultivated orchards from insects, notably borers and cureulio. Take the example of a young orchard in which many trees were found to be attacked by borers. It was a cultivated orchard, but several sections of various sizes had been allowed to grow up to grass and weeds; that is, had become sod sections through poor cultivation. Without exception the trees attacked by borers were in these weedy patches. With the large number of in- sects which winter either in the soil or in trash upon the ground it could hardly be otherwise than that they should flourish best under a management which never dis- turbs the soil and which keeps a constant supply of litter to hide in. The ecurculio is especially happy in a sod orchard and the ‘‘red-bug’’ scems equally so. ). There is less danger from mice. This is another argument which it is difficult , 3 for the sod-culture advocate Fria. 36.—A tree girdled by mice and saved : : by bridge grafting. This is entirely practical to disprove; in fact he usually and any good grafter can do the work. frankly admits it and puts some sort of guard about his trees to protect them. An orchard in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, may be cited as an illustra- tion. The owner left some grass in one corner of his orchard one winter and the next spring every tree in the acre and a quarter was completely girdled by mice. They were all bridge erafted and not a tree was lost. When visited ten years after, each tree stood on stilts, as shown in Figure 36. But one might not be so fortunate as this in every case and even with protectors METHOD OF CULTIVATION 83 there is always danger of accidents. There are sections where mice are never troublesome, and in these localities the argument would not hold. 6. The cultivated orchard yields more fruit. This is a diffi- cult point to prove and probably never will be proved to the satisfaction of the best sod-culture advocates. General observa- tion and still more orchard surveys have shown that, with the rank and file, cultivation gives far better yields. After all it is the average that counts. A system may be ever so good with the exceptional man and if it falls down with the average man it is better not to attempt it, for most of us are ‘‘ average.’ 7. Cultivated orchards yield larger and better apples. This is another point which will never be admitted by the sod culturist and doubtless is not always true. But asin No. 6 it certainly is true with the rank and file of orchard men. Removal of Hay Crop.—There is another argument on this question of ‘‘ cultivation vs. sod culture,’’ which seems very im- portant and yet which is used by both sides to support their contentions. This is the fact that most men will not leave the hay in the orchard. The sod men say: ‘* We are not talking about the man who mows the grass and puts it in his barn but about the man who cuits the grass and lets it lie in the orchard.”’ The advocates of cultivation say: ‘‘ We admit that sod culture gives good results when properly carried out, but what is the use of discussing a method which only a very few men will earry out, but in which the vast majority are doomed to failure.’’ This argument is the strongest one in the whole list and it is the one which makes many good orchardists very strong believers in cultivation. It must be admitted without argument that some of the men who use sod in their orchards are among the most successful growers. But for the rank and file of orchard men, and particularly for that great section of the fruit growing fraternity who also keep some stock, it seems much better to ‘““ remove temptation ’’ and not to grow any hay in the orchard. Method of Cultivation.—If, then, we are to practise cultiva- tion in the orchard, what methods shall we use? Stated briefly the method most generally satisfactory is to plow the land, or 84 ORCHARD CULTURE otherwise stir it, as early in the spring as the soil is in good condition; then to cultivate it frequently up to about July 1, when the orchard is sown to some cover crop which is allowed to remain on the land until the following spring. This seems to be a simple program and if the proper implements are available to work with, and attention is given to the details, there is usually little difficulty in carrying it out. Yet there are several things that it is very desirable to look after carefully. To begin with, the land ought to be plowed, and cultivation ought to be gotten under way, just as early as possible in the spring. In fact, there are some men who advocate and practise very late fall plowing of the orchard. Fall Plowing.—There are several good arguments in support of this practice. Here are some which have considerable weight. 1. Where land has been plowed in the autumn it can be worked earlier in the spring, not only because the operation of plowing is out of the way but because plowed land will dry out more quickly. It is always desirable to get the soil in good condition and to push the trees as early in the season as possible. Fall plowing is particularly desirable on rather heavy soils, be- cause it is so late in the spring before they are in proper condition to be plowed. 2. It frequently, in fact usually, happens that there is less work for the teams in the autumn than in the spring. Often it is even somewhat difficult on an orchard farm to find enough team work in the autumn, and if even a part of the orchards can be plowed it keeps the teams busy and gives the comfortable assurance that at least this much work will be out of the way when the spring rush comes on. To the man who has done his orchard work in an office, this may not seem to be a strong argument, but any one who really gets out and does the work, or who even ‘““posses the job,’’ will find that he frequently has to modify his plans and theories to suit the case in hand. In particular he will find that the problem of keeping his teams constantly at work is by no means an easy one to solve. Too often it is solved by allowing the teams to stand in the barn, which usually means that the owner has not realized that there is any problem. DISC HARROWING 85 3. Fall plowing disturbs a number of insects that pass the winter in the ground. The apple maggot or railroad worm and the spring canker worm, in particular, pass the winter in the soil in the pupa stage, and relatively few of them will survive if the land is fall plowed. In any ease where a bad attack of either of these insects is likely to occur it would seem that fall plowing might be justified for this reason alone. 4. It gets the old and diseased leaves under the ground where they will not be a source of infection for the new leaves when they come out in the spring. In apple scab, in particular, it has been shown that the disease passes the winter on the old leaves and if these can be disposed of it will aid materially in the fight for clean fruit. Where the plowing is delayed until spring most of the leaves will be blown off the land into the adjoining grass or hedge-rows where they will produce an abundance of spores. If the plowing is done in the autumn the bulk of them will be still in the orchard and will be turned under, thereby securing just so much extra humus as well as getting rid of a prolific source of infection. The two principal arguments used against fall plowing are that the soil is more likely to wash and that there is more danger of injury to the roots of the trees by freezing. The first of these is undoubtedly correct and is a sufficient reason for not practising fall plowing in a great many eases on hillsides. Still on many farms there are one or more blocks which do not have slope enough to be damaged in this way and on most farms ‘‘ every little helps,’’ especially in the spring. On the freezing argument there is need of more light. It would be relatively easy, with soil thermometers, to determine whether the ground will freeze more deeply in a plowed orchard than in one under sod or a cover crop. If the land were har- rowed down at all it is very doubtful if the plowed land would allow the frost to enter any more deeply. Disc Harrowing.—Of course it is not always necessary that the land should be plowed. On lghtish lands in particular it is often possible to fit them in the spring with some type of dise harrow. One of these disc harrows, if set so as to reach its ereatest depth, will stir the soil enough. Where soils can be so 86 ORCHARD CULTURE handled it is usually a more expeditious method. If the disc harrow is run through the orchard in one direction and then the land is allowed to stand a few days, to be followed by a discing in the other direction, twice over the land will usually put it in good condition for the spring-tooth or some other harrow. Early Tillage Affects Moisture.—The desirability of fitting the land as early in the spring as possible is very frequently overlooked by the orchard man, who has on the land a crop of clover or some other crop which lives through the winter. He thinks that he ought to let it grow for a time in order to get additional humus to plow under, and the temptation to get ali he can in the humus line frequently gets him into serious diffi- culties. Of course it is expected that when the land is plowed in the spring a certain number of roots will be destroyed by the plows, but if the land is plowed each year the roots so cut will never have attained any great size and they will be replaced at once by new feeding roots which will come up into the soil which was turned over. Moreover when this is done in the early spring the tree will not feel the temporary loss of moisture, be- cause at this time of year the loss of moisture by transpiration from the tree is relatively very small. It ought also to be emphasized, in this connection, that the httle root hairs which do most of the actual absorbing of soil moisture do not persist over winter but a new set is developed each spring. Now suppose that the orchard man, in his zeal to get extra humus, allows his cover crop to grow until June before plowing. In the first place this will seriously exhaust the soil moisture by the extra drafts made upon it to grow the cover crop; then an immense number of feeding roots and root hairs will have been developed in this surface layer of the soil which -is turned over by plow. The loss of these roots, or rather of the soil moisture which they are taking in, while it would not have been felt by the tree in the least had it occurred in the early spring, is now very seriously felt, since the tree is in full leaf and giving off to the air an immense amount of moisture daily. If we add to this the further fact that this heavy layer of cover crop, both the autumn growth and the spring growth, interferes THE TIME TO STOP CULTIVATION 87 with the transference of water from the subsoil into the furrow slice which was turned over, and that therefore a considerable time must elapse before new feeding roots can be established in this surface layer, we.may see at least some of the objections to deferring plowing until summer in order to grow a cover crop. After-tillage—Following this first ‘‘ fittmg ’’ of the land there is a period of cultivating. This period varies in length with different men, al! the way from not over a month to three or even four months. The principal objects of this cultivation are to keep down the weeds and to conserve the soil moisture, and individual conditions are going to very decidedly modify not only its length but its thoroughness and the implements necessary to do it. As a rule the land ought to be gone over every ten days or two weeks, but if one is so unfortunate as to have a bad case of witch grass to contend with, or if the season is especially dry, or the land, either from lack of humus or from any other cause, is not in condition to hold moisture, then it may be de- sirable to cultivate oftener. In particular it is well to get over all the orchard just as soon as possible after a rain, unless of course it is a rainy spell. Even then it is important to start the cultivator just as soon as the rainy spell is over. For most of this cultivation very shallow stirring of the soil is all that is neces- sary. It is often the practice after the land is once gotten into shape in the spring to use some harrow of the spring-tooth type for most of the work. The one shown in Figure 42 is admirably suited to this part of the work and will cover more land in a day than anything that was ever turned loose in an orchard. The acme harrow is also excellent. The time to stop cultivation, as has been suggested, varies greatly with different men. A rather short, sharp campaign is usually best. Get the orchard under cultivation as early as possible, make the cultivation thorough, and then stop it early and sow in the cover crop. It is rare that it needs to be con- tinued after the first of July. Several of the disadvantages of cultivation may be largely overcome by seeding down early. On land which does not hold moisture well and with a heavy crop of fruit on the trees and a dry season, late culture may be desirable 88 ORCHARD CULTURE and even necessary. It must be remembered that the longer the sowing of the cover crop is delayed the less growth there will be of that crop, and consequently the less humus there will be to plow under the following year, which in turn will make the land suffer more from drouth. In other words, by prolonging cultiva- tion we save moisture for that year at the expense of future years. Hand Work.—While thorough cultivation in the orchard as a whole is desirable, it is doubtful how important it is, in older orchards at least, that the soil close about the trees should be stirred. And certainly it adds very greatly to the expense if one tries to remove all the weeds and grass from close around every tree. It means hand labor and a geod deal of it, and as soon as we resort to hand work we raise very decidedly the cost of caring for the orchard. If, for any reason, it is thought to be absolutely necessary to do this work, however, then as much as possible should be done with the grape-hoe shown in Figure 43. It is surprising how much this implement will do. The balance may be cleared out by using a heavy hoe or a light mattock or grub hoe. Damage During Cultivation—One of the annoying things about cultivating an orchard is the amount of injury that is pretty certain to be done to the trees by the harness and the whiffletrees and the cultivators. Even with the best of men and teams a certain amount of this damage is sure to oecur. With poorer men and less steady teams there is enough of it to drive the most ardent believer in cultivation to sod culture. Patches of bark will be scraped off the trunk by the cultivator, the tips of branches chewed off by the horses, or the bark raked off the branches by the hames of the harness. While one is always more or less at the merey of the teamster, a good many things may be done to help him to avoid injuring the trees. The horses may be muzzled, and harnesses with low hames ought always to be used. We may even resort with great satisfaction to the tugless harness shown in Figure 40. Then short whiffletrees and doubletrees ought always to be used. It will avoid many a scar if the outside ends of the whiffletrees are padded with burlap DAMAGE DURING CULTIVATION Fria. 37.—A compromise method of handling the land in an orchard, sod along the tree rows and cultivation between. This method has much to commend it. 90 ORCHARD CULTURE or an old sack. If extension types of implements are used, the team, at least, will be kept well away from the trees. These extension implements may be either those like the light draft harrow shown in Figure 42, which cover a wide space and con- sequently avoid the necessity of the team getting near the trees; or, if these are not available, the two sections of an ordinary dise or spring-tooth harrow may be separated by using a long bar or evener. In the latter case there is, of course, a strip of land in the centre each time which is not worked, but if the space between the sections is not wider than one of them the strip is cultivated on the return trip. Sowing the Cover Crop.—When the time finally arrives for sowing the cover crop it may be sown just previous to the last - cultivation which will cover the seed, except in the case of clover and turnips which are sown just after the last cultivation and either left for the next rain to cover or else lightly brushed in with a brush harrow. It is always a satisfaction to see block after block of the orchard seeded down to the cover crop. One feels that another good job is finished and trouble (at least that particular trouble) is over for the season. QUESTIONS . Outline briefly three plans of orchard management as regards culture. . What are the principal points in favor of sod culture? Give the arguments in favor of the cultivation of orchards. . Outline a year’s treatment of the soil in a cultivated orchard. Give several reasons for and against plowing orchards in late fall. Discuss the use of the disc harrow in orchards. . Describe the effects of early spring tillage. . At what time during the growing season should the cultivation cease? Why? 9. What hand work, if any, is to be recommended in the cultivation of SO OR Ow Nm He ie) orchards? 10. How is the cover crop started? 11. Is sod-mulch, clean culture or a modified method used in your section? CHAPTER VII ORCHARD IMPLEMENTS It is a great convenience in cultivating an orchard if a man can have just the right implement for each particular part in the work and for every special combination of conditions. That is one advantage which the large orchard has over the small one. With only a few acres of orchard to care for the owner feels as though he ought to get along with the smallest equipment possi- ble unless he has use for the implements in his other farm work. It is possible to care for an orchard with only a plow and a harrow, in fact he might even cut out the plow if his harrow were of the dise variety. But with a large orchard, the owner feels more free to add to his equipment, and if the orchard is suffi- ciently large he can justify quite an extensive array of imple- ments. This is a doctrine which, like the doctrine of a fairly large list of varieties, it is easy to carry too far, and any man should keep the list down low enough so that he at least has room for every implement in the tool shed. But since there are a great many orchard implements on the market and since slightly varying conditions may make a differ- ent one more effective than any other, it seems worth while to discuss a few of the principal types. Plows.—As already suggested it is not always necessary to plow the orchard, but it frequently is, and when one has to plow he wants a good implement. There are about four things to be considered in selecting an orchard plow: First, the draft; second, how close it can be run to the trees; third, how much danger there is that it will damage the trees; and, fourth, its effect on the furrow slice, that is, how thoroughly it will pulverize the land as it turns it over. Any orchard plow should have a fairly abrupt mold board in order to pulverize as well as to invert the furrow slice. The type of plow which merely inverts the furrow slice without breaking it up at all will make a pretty looking field, 91 92 ORCHARD IMPLEMENTS that may win in a plowing match where beauty is the main thing, but it certainly does not leave the soil in anything like as good condition as the mold board with an abrupt turn. The latter is as good as the former plus one or two harrowings. Types of Plows.—There are four or five types of plows usually available to select from, any one of which is fairly satis- factory. First, there is the ordinary walking plow. This will do good work, and if the orchard is small it may be the best plow to choose. The chief disadvantages of this plow are that it is necessary to make a back-furrow and a dead furrow to each row of trees and that it is not possible to get quite as close to the trees aS with some other plows, but neither one of these is a serious objection. The former difficulty may be obviated by selecting a hillside walking plow. This is reversible, so that all the furrows are thrown in one direction. The plowman simply begins at one side of the orchard and goes back and forth, making neither dead nor back-furrows, until the entire orchard is plowed. The usual custom in using such a plow is to throw the land down the hill, but it is much better, unless the slope is very steep, to throw it up the hill. Hillside land which is cultivated will work down the hill fast enough without any deliberate assistance from the owner. The principal objection to this plow is that it does not do as good work as the ordinary type of walking plow just mentioned. This is not a very serious difference, but it may be avoided by using the third type of plow, the double-sulky plow. This is a wheeled implement with two plows side by side, one a right- hand and the other a left-hand plow. It works exactly the same as the hillside plow but does a little better work on the soil. One can not, however, get quite so close to the trees with it. For preparing a field to set an orchard on it is the finest thing yet invented. Orchard Gang Plow.—We have next the small orchard gang plow shown in Figure 38. This consists of three eight-inch plows and will therefore move twenty-four inches in width at one time, which means getting over the orchard in a hurry. It is built so ORCHARD DISC PLOW 93 as to get very close to the trees whether one is plowing towards them or away from them, and the draft is surprisingly small considering the surface covered. The writer has never seen an accurate draft test of this plow, but, in trying it out in orchard practice as compared with the two types of walking plows just mentioned, it did not seem that the team pulled any harder with this gang throwing twenty-four inches than with a fourteen- inch plow of the other sorts. Of course these small plows will Fig. 38.—A gang of three eight-inch plows. One of the best implements for orchard use. The draft is light and it covers a lot of land in a day. not throw a very deep furrow, but this is seldom wanted in an orchard. Three or four inches is usually ample. At the present writing, with only one season’s experience to base the opinion on, this little plow seems to stand at the head for straight orchard work. Orchard Disc Plow.—Lastly we have what is known as the California orchard plow, shown in Figure 39. As will be seen it consists of four large discs at one end of a long beam. The great advantage of this implement is that it does very thorough work and one can get very close to the trees with it and still 94 ORCHARD IMPLEMENTS have the team far enough away to avoid all danger of injury from that source. For working out the weeds and grass close about the trees it is certainly admirable. Harrows.—Starting with the most deeply cutting types of harrows we have the disc and the cutaway. These are much alike, the only difference being that the former has a smooth edge to the discs while in the latter the edges are notched. It bs F ia. 39.—A dise plow for orchard work. An excellent implement for working close to the trees without getting the team near enough to do any damage. is claimed that these latter will cut into the soil more deeply, which is probably true. Either one is excellent for working in the orchard, and as already suggested may frequently be sub- stituted for the plow in getting the land in shape in the spring. Even in the later cultivation it is well to have one of these harrows available for use in case the weeds get a bad start in any corner of the orchard. Next to the dise type of harrow comes the spring-tooth, and it ought to follow the disc in the season’s work. It will pull the furrows to pieces and pulverize the soil well, following either CULTIVATORS 95 the plow or the disc, and some type of spring-tooth harrow ought to be in any collection of orchard implements that is supposed to be at all complete. There is one objection to the ordinary spring- tooth harrow for young orchards and that is that it is so likely to catch on a stone or some other obstacle and jump against the trees. Careful driving will help to prevent this difficulty, and of course it does not apply in land free from stones and other obstacles. Another objection which has been made to the spring- tooth and which may be worth mentioning here, is that where -an orchard has patches of witch (quack) grass in it this harrow will drag small pieces to other parts of the orchard and drop them, thus helping to spread this noxious weed. This is prob- ably a legitimate objection but can not offset the many advantages of this type of tooth either on harrows or cultivators. We have next the acme harrow shown in Figure 40. The action of this machine is to cut into the soil behind and to crush . the clods in front. Where the soil conditions are right it will do as much work as anything in an orchard. But it will not work on land which is either very stcny or which has much trash on it. Barring these limitations it is an excellent implement and will leave the soil in as good condition as anything on the list. Lastly among harrows we have the spike-tooth or smoothing type. This is not considered a very important implement in the orchard. It is especially designed to leave the surface fine and smooth and occasionally such a tool may be needed, particularly for covering some kinds of cover crops, but this would be the first thing to strike out if one were trying to cut down the list of implements. Cultivators.—It is difficult to draw the line between cultiva- tors and harrows because many implements are used for both purposes. In the classification here given the cultivators are used primarily for cultivating and are more under the control of the operator than the harrows. We have first the implement shown in Figure 41, and known technically on the market as the orchard cultivator. The teeth are entirely rigid and it is designed especially for use in getting the land in shape and levelling it, after it has been 96 ORCHARD IMPLEMENTS plowed or disced. The chief objection to it is that the frame is very rigid, so that it does not always adapt itself to irregularities mE : sige SS 3y Fic. 40.—The acme harrow. An excellent orchard cultivator when soil conditions are good, but stones and trash interfere with it seriously. Fic. 41.—An orchard cultivator with heavy, rigid teeth. An excellent implement for heavy work, either where the land is rough or the weeds are large. in the surface, one end perhaps working too deeply and the other not deep enough. On the other hand this very rigidity makes it effective in pulling the land into shape, taking down the high CULTIVATORS Fs Bom, 3 wt, 2 } Fic. 42.—Light draft orchard cultivator. Where conditions are reasonably good (soi! fairly well prepared and weeds not too large) this implement does excellent work and will easily cultivate fifteen acres a day. 98 ORCHARD IMPLEMENTS places and scraping them into the low ones. And it will dig into a patch of witch grass or other troublesome weed in a way to dis- courage the intruder. Next is the light-draft orchard harrow shown in Figure 42. It is certainly well named, as the draft is very light considering the land it covers and there are few if any implements that will get over as many acres of orchard in a day as this one. It will cheer the heart of any man with a lot of work to do. You ean send a man out into a ten acre block of orchard in the morning and he is back at noon with the job done. And it does good work, too. ees Mo Fie. 43.—A grape-hoe at work in a young orchard. An excellent implement for clearing out the weeds along the tree row. It will do the work of a dozen men. Its shortcoming is that the land has to be in pretty good condition for it to do good work. The teeth are rather hight and will not work well on rough land, but once the land has been put in good condition in the spring it will certainly take care of it well and cheaply. There are two wings which enable it to work close to the trees without bringing the horses near them. A lght lever attached to each of the four sections enables the operator to dump any trash that may have caught on the teeth. QUESTIONS 99 A combination implement known as a grape-hoc is shown in Figure 43. It can be used either in the capacity of a plow or a cultivator, by changing the attachment, and is designed to save hand labor by working close to the trees. With the right man to run it, it will certainly do what it was designed to do. There is a dise for steering it, and a good husky man who has had a little practice in running it will come as near cleaning out all the weeds from about the trees as it is possible to do with anything short of a hand hoe. No orchard of any size can afford to be without one. Then there is the common V-shaped cultwator. This is not strictly necessary to care for the orchard, but as soon as any of the companion crops are planted it becomes the main dependence. It is usually best to have two of them with teeth of different sizes. The large are needed for heavy work when one is unfortunate enough to get behindhand, and the small for land in better shape. In fact some orchardists have three of them in the equipment, ranging from the small, spike-toothed variety up to one with five good-sized shovels. QUESTIONS 1. What advantages have large orchards over small cnes in the matter of implements? 2. Why should the plow have an abrupt mold-board? 3. What may be said for and against the ordinary walking plow for orchard work? . What advantage has the hillside plow? . Describe a double-sulky plow and tell when you would prefer it. . Give the advantages of the orchard gang plow. . What is a “California orchard plow”? Give several points in its favor. 8. Compare the various types of harrows for use in orchards. 9. What types of cultivators are suitable for use in orchards? 10. What orchard implements are most common in your section? IO on CHAPTER VIII FERTILIZERS THE proper fertilizing of a fruit plantation is an especially difficult point to determine experimentally, because it is so difficult to determine and to control the conditions surrounding the roots of trees. When it has been determined by experiment what the best treatment for a particular orchard is, this informa- tion is of relatively little value to the owners of other orchards because the many different factors of ‘‘ soil condition ’’ are likely to vary widely. In this respect the fertilizer problem stands ahead of any other. For example, if it is a question of what to spray with, the conditions surrcunding the leaves of the trees are so similar that what is best for Brown’s trees will probably also be best for Smith’s trees, though he may live five or ten or even one hundred miles away. But the fertilizer question is so complex, and conditions change so decidedly in going even a short distance, that what is good in the way of fertilizers for Brown’s trees may not be good for Smith’s though his orchard may be just across the road. Doubtless further experiment will throw more light on the subject, and we may hope that the time will come when we shall have a generally accepted scheme of orchard fertilization. In the meantime we must use what evidence we have and do our best to gain further light for ourselves by a little personal experimenting. The best orchardists believe in fertilizing and practise it in private orchards. But the evidence on the subject is meagre and conflicting. Three lines of reasoning should lead to the adoption of this attitude until’ such time as more authoritative evidence on the subject is available. Trees Exhaust Soil.—It has been very definitely shown that apple orchards take out of the soil far more fertilizer material year by year than ordinary farm crops do. Professor I. P. Roberts has calculated that the twenty-year record of fertilizer 100 EXPERIMENTAL PROOF 101 value of an acre of wheat and an acre of apples would be as follows: Wheat, erain and straw, 20 year’ «2 er. sc s< 20. $128.23 Apples, fruit and leaves, 20 years.............. 207.45 This makes no account of the large amount of fertilizer material which is each year locked up in the roots, trunk, and branches of the tree. Now we must admit at once that the tree forages much more widely than the annual crop in search of food, but even when this is considered it seems reasonably cer- tain that an orchard exhausts the soil faster than the wheat crop. It must be remembered further that there is no chance for rotation of crops with the orchard, but the same elements in the same ratio are taken out year after year. When we remem- ber still further that no man who makes any pretense to being a farmer would think of trying to grow a wheat crop many years without fertilizers, it seems very reasonable that the orchard man should follow the practice of the general farmer. Best Orchardists Fertilize——This brings us to the second reason for thinking that orchards ought to be fertilized, and that is that the best fruit men practise fertilizing. Go into any orchard section and you will find that the most progressive and successful growers, as a rule, are the men who fertilize highly. Usually the man succeeds in proportion as he fertilizes. The man who fertilizes year after year, whether he has a crop of fruit on his trees or not, is the man who usually has a crop. The man who is noted in a section as applying fertilizers in large quantity is usually also noted as a man who harvests bumper crops. This is not conclusive proof, because these men also care well for their orchards in other ways. But it is very suggestive, particularly the fact that the generous feeder usually succeeds better than the moderate feeder. Experimental Proof.—The third point which has con: erted many to fertilizing their orchards is the fact that numerous experiments have shown such marked benefits from fertilizing. Of course there have been experiments that have not shown any benefit, but when, in a series of experiments, a fertilized block gives several times as much fruit as an unfertilized block, the 102 FERTILIZERS two having been treated in exactly the same way except in the matter of fertilizers, it is difficult to avoid drawing the conclu- sion that the fertilizer is responsible for the difference. In the orchard fertilizer experiments at the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station (with which experiments the writer has had no connection) the thing which most impresses any one who studies the results and examines the trees, is the extremely poor showing made by the trees which had no fertilizer. We may disagree decidedly as to the relative merits of muriate and sul- fate of potash, or as to whether bone meal is best as a source of phosphoric acid, but none can escape the conclusion that under the conditions of this experiment any fertilizer combination used was greatly to be preferred to no fertilizer at all. Influence of Nitrogen.—With so much difference in opinion as to what forms of fertilizer, if any, are required, it is- hardly to be expected that there should be very general agreement as to the particular effect of the different fertilizer elements, yet all are agreed that nitrogen, in any form, is likely to produce rapid wood growth with large, dark green leaves and long terminal shoots. If the application of nitrogen is carried to excess, the wood growth is often made at the expense of fruit, though up to a certain point nitrogen is apt to increase the yield. It almost always decreases color, principally because the fruit, like the leaves, is large in size and does not reach maturity until late in the season. The heavy foliage also reduces the color by shutting off the sunlight. Influence of Potash.—It is known that potash enters into the fruit acids and is a very large part (more than 50 per cent) of the ash of fruits. Potash has also been credited, and rightly so, with increasing the color in fruits. This effect is probably produced by the influence which potash has on the general erowth of the tree and does not come as a direct influence; that is, potash will not change the green color of apples to a red color as nitrogen will often change the yellow color of leaves to a sreen color. In any event fairly liberal applications of some form of potash are generally made to bearing orchards if the owner believes in fertilizing. FORMS TO USE 103 Influence of Phosphoric Acid.—The exact part which phos- phorie acid plays in orchard development seems not to have been so well worked out, at least there is less agreement on the sub- ject. It is certainly important in seed development and prob- ably in the ripening of the fruit, and some men have even given it credit for improvements in the color of fruit, though this is not very generally accepted. If it occurs it is probably as a result of the control which this element exerts on the growth of the tree. Maturity and sunlight are certainly the two most important influences in producing color in fruits. Forms to Use.—If we are to use fertilizers we have the choice of several forms of each one. For nitrogen we have nitrate of soda, sulfate of ammonia, tankage, cyanamid and nitrate of potash. Nitrate of soda is prob- ably used more than any other form and has the advantage that it is very quickly available. It is also a reasonably cheap form. Sulfate of ammonia acts more slowly than the nitrate because it has to be changed in the soil into the nitrate form before it can be used by the plant. It also has a tendency to make the soil sour because it leaves behind the sulfuric acid. Still, it is fairly popular, and if lime is used to take care of the acid, it is good to use in a combination where a long season of growth is wanted. Tankage is still more slowly available and is usually reason- able in the price per unit. It is used with particular satisfaction on young trees or in any situation where a relatively long period of growth is desired. With young trees tankage in combination with nitrate of soda has given very much better results than the nitrate alone, even when two applications of the latter were given. The nitrate of potash is hardly worth discussing because it 1s so seldom that one ean get it. It carries about the same percent- age of nitrogen as the nitrate of soda and in addition about as much potash as the muriate. It is thus a very high grade fertilizer, the highest that we have. It has the disadvantage that it requires the application of both nitrogen and potash at one time, but usually this is desirable. We ought to add to the forms of nitrogen ‘‘cyanamid,’’ the newly developed combination of lime with atmospheric nitrogen. ‘ 104 FERTILIZERS It has not yet been in use long enough for its qualities to be tested, but it has this to recommend it, that it is relatively cheap. Among phosphoric acid fertilizers are bone meal, rock phos- phate, and basic slag. Bone meal is an old favorite among fertilizer users. Within recent years basic slag, or Thomas phos- phate powder, a by-product produced in the manufacture of steel, has been used a great deal by orchard men. It has the advantage of carrying a considerable percentage of lime, but this has been reduced recently by changes in the manufacturing process. Acid phosphates or superphosphates are made from both bone and rock phosphates by treating them with sulfuric acid. This takes up a part of the lime, rendering the phosphoric acid more available. The superphosphates are specially useful with young trees where the roots are extending rapidly. They are the only form in which phosphoric acid should be appled to orchards in sod, since in such orchards one must depend on the fertilizer dissolving and being washed into the soil. Two forms of potash are in common use, the muriate and the. sulfate, the latter coming in both high and low grade. Probably the muriate is more generally used than any other form at the present time. It has the great advantage of being cheaper than sulfate, but it also has a tendency to render the soil acid by taking out the lime. This latter tendency can be overcome of course by adding lime, but that means one more thing to look after. The low grade sulfate carries about half the amount of actual potash that the high grade does, but it also has a large amount of magnesia, which many consider an advantage. There is the same objection to it that there is to any low grade fer- tilizer, viz., that it costs more per unit of plant food to transport it and to handle it in the orchard. It is perhaps best to use the high grade sulfate altogether until such time as it may be shown that some other form is better. There is no very definite experimental data to show that lime is beneficial to orchard trees, but there 7s a very general impres- sion among orchard men that it is an excellent plan to apply lime to orchards. So far as this idea has any real backing, it prob- ably rests on the fact that limestone districts in fruit regions FERTILIZER FORMULAS 105 are usually noted for their fine fruit. But quite aside from its effect on the trees, the use of lime in orchards is probably war- ranted on account of its effect as the cover crop which is grown. Most of these crops are benefited by lime, and for some of them, notably the beginners, on some soils lime is absolutely essential for a good growth. On the lighter types of soils the ground limestone is to be preferred, while for the heavier soils the burned lime is better. On many soils an application of a half ton to a ton per acre will be found to give excellent returns in improved gvrowth of cover crops. On one orchard block, the soil of which the writer had tested, it was shown that it would require five tons per acre to neutralize the upper foot of soil. Of course this amount was not put on in any one season but a yearly application of a ton was used with markedly beneficial results. In ordering lime of either type it will be found best to pay the extra cost of having it come in bags rather than in bulk, as it is impossible to handle the latter type with any degree of com- fort when there is any wind. Fertilizer Formulas.—It may perhaps be helpful to include in this chapter a few fertilizer formulas which are actually in use by some of our leading orchard men. Mr. George A. Drew, of Greenwich, Connecticut, has the fol- lowing formula, which is used at the rate of 400 pounds to 800 pounds per acre according to the condition of the soil. His trees are cultivated. ES PMUMES | OLGO aeicssid 'ai dabei sneys 16 ~=per cent 200° poundsatankage 7.5.05. + =. 10 per cent Am. 20 per cent B. P. Lime a0 SPOuNGs DONE), 5.5 p< 2 att ses 414 per cent Am. 50 per cent B. P. Lime 650 pounds basic slag .......... 16 sper cent 420 pounds sulphate potash..... 48 per cent 155 pounds filler 2000 Mr. L. F. Priest, of Gleasondale, Massachusetts, grows his orchard in sod. He says: ‘‘Our best trees have a good dressing of stable manure in the fall and the following spring 600 pounds of slag and 200 pounds of sulfate of potash per acre for the largest trees, the smaller ones receiving less. All the hay we can spare is used for mulch.”’ 106 FERTILIZERS - Munson and Frost, of Littleton, Massachusetts, use the fol- lowing formula on their bearing apple orchard: 500 pounds basic slag, and 225 pounds high grade sulfate of potash. Mr. A. C. Starr, of Starrs Point, Nova Scotia, writes: ‘‘We use all the barn manure we have to spare, and we usually get over them once in about four years, giving a fair application. In addition we apply each year 400 to 500 pounds of ground bone per acre and 200 to 300 pounds of muriate of potash.’’ Professor J. P. Stewart, of the Pennsylvania Experiment Station, who has given a great deal of study to this question of fertilizing orchards, gives the following table of fertilizers to be used while determining by experiment what the orchard actually needs: TaBLeE III.—A General Fertilizer for Apple Orchards. (Amounts per Acre for Bearing Trees) Nitrogen 30 lbs. (N) amor ays 50 lbs Potash aes 50 lbs. Carried in— Carried in— Carried in— 100 Ibs. nitrate soda and | 350 Ibs. acid phosphate | 50 to 100 Ibs. muriate or in or in 150 lbs. dried blood 200 Ibs. bone meal or in or in 150 lbs. sulfate of am- | 300 lbs. basic slag 100 to 200 Ibs. low monia rade sulfate Application.—In applying fertilizers it is much better to use a fertilizer spreader when possible. Of course where the trees are young, and the fertilizer is therefore spread over only a part of the surface, it is usually necessary to put it on by land. Insoluble materials, or those slowly soluble, like bone meal and basic slag, should be apphed before the land is plowed or should be otherwise thoroughly incorporated with the soil. Those which dissolve readily, like muriate and sulfate of potash or nitrate of soda, may be spread upon the surface and will wash in with the first rain. The potash and phosphoric acid salts are not readily washed out of the soil and may therefore be applied at almost any season of the year, though the orchardist should avoid a time when there are likely to be dashing rains which will carry them off APPLICATION 107 in the surface water. But nitrogen is very likely to escape and should be applied after growth has started so that it may be taken up quickly. The fertilizing of the various kinds of ‘fruit trees will vary somewhat, but there will probably not be any greater variation than might occur between two different varieties of the same kind of fruit or between two blocks of the same fruit on different soils. For example, the Wagener and Gravenstein apples will probably vary nearly as much in their fertilizer requirements as will the general classes of apples and peaches. And two blocks of Baldwin apple trees on very different soils may need quite as different fertilizers as a block of peaches and a block of apples. QUESTIONS . Compare orchards with wheat in their exhaustion of soil fertility. . What have experiments proved in regard to orchard fertilizers? What are the effects of nitrogenous fertilizers? . Give the effects of fertilizers rich in potash. . What is the influence of phosphoric acid on fruit trees? . Discuss the forms of fertilizer to be used in supplying nitrogen, . From what sources may the phosphoric acid be derived? Which are best for young trees? 8. What two forms of potash are in common use? Give an advantage of each. 9. Is orchard fertilizing practised in your section? IQ oP Ww pe CHAPTER Ix COVER CROPS WHILE most people have a fairly clear idea of what a cover erop is, it may be worth while to begin by attempting to define it so that we may have a definite idea of just what is meant by the term. In orchard parlance, then, a ‘‘cover crop’’ is any erop grown in the orchard solely for the benefit of the trees. It is usually an annual crop and is sown in the orchard during the summer and plowed under the following spring. In actual practice we find all gradations, from the orthodox, typical cover crop, such as measures up to the definitions given above, on through such plants as turnips, which are primarily cover crops but where a part of the crop may be harvested, to buckwheat, which may be grown primarily as a companion crop and sold, but which serves some of the purposes of a cover crop. The most important purposes served by the cover crop are the following, arranged roughly in the order of their importance, though the order would vary under varying conditions: Prevent Washing.—The cover crop serves to prevent washing during fall and spring rains and to make the orchard comfortable to go about in during muddy weather in the spring, that is, it serves aS a cover. A crop which will really accomplish all this is difficult to find, but it ought to come as near it as possible. There is no question that the loss of soluble plant food, and of actual soil, by washing is one of the great drawbacks to cultiva- tion on lands which are even slightly rolling, and anything which we can do to lessen this loss ought to be done. Of course the cover crop helps to prevent washing both by its roots and its tops. It is therefore important, on lands which are subject to washing, to select a plant as a cover crop that will develop a large top which will mat down on the surface of the soil and thus prevent the water from moving, and one which also has a large and fibrous root system that will hold the soil particles to- gether. Sometimes these two characteristics go together, but fre- quently they do not and then one has to choose between them. It is difficult to say which is the more important, but a thick mat 108 THE MOST IMPORTANT PURPOSE 109 over the surface will certainly accomplish wonders in preventing washing of the soil. Check Fall Growth.—The cover crop serves to check the growth of the trees in the autumn and thus force them to ripen up their wood for winter. This is often the most important fune- tion of the cover crop and is accomplished by its appropriating water and plant food that would otherwise go to the trees. When this purpose is of importance, as in sections with rather trying winter climates, one should select a crop that will develop a rank erowth about the time that the trees ought to ‘‘sober down,’’ which is at least as early as the first of September. The date of sowing the crop must of course be varied to suit its rapidity of erowth and the needs of the trees. If the owner is using buck- wheat, which comes on with a rush, he can afford to delay sow- ing much later than if he is using soybeans, which require a considerable time to develop. Another very important point in this connection is the question of whether the cover crop is hardy or is killed by frost. If it is hardy, the date of seeding may be considerably delayed, which is sometimes very desirable where the trees are carrying a large crop of fruit. The cover crop adds humus to the soil, and where barn manure is not to be had for the orchard, which is frequently the case on special orchard farms, this purpose becomes an all-important one. With both light and heavy soils it is particularly important to keep up the supply of humus because they are both damaged much more than intermediate types when the humus content runs low. For these soils therefore one ought to select some large erowing crop and be careful to secure a good growth of it. This latter is by no means as simple a matter as it might seem. Weather conditions, soil conditions, the shade of the trees, and various other factors come in to influence the result, and unless the owner looks out for all the details he is likely to find his orchard going into the winter with very little material to either prevent wash or make humus. A plan which has been tried with considerable satisfaction, on lands where it was difficult to get a good growth of cover crop, is to reserve a part or even all of the fertilizer that is intended for that block and apply it just previous to sowing the cover crop. A little nitrogen in particular applied 110 COVER CROPS at this time is likely to be a great help in starting the crop. The cover crop takes up and holds plant food at a time when the trees are not active. The importance of this may have been over-emphasized, but it is certainly worth considering, and it is one argument in favor of those crops which are not killed by frost. With buckwheat, for example, one gets little of this effect because it is killed before the trees have stopped growing. With any plant which lives over winter we get this benefit, but the amount of it varies with the amount of root growth of the cover plant. If the soil is occupied fully by the roots of this plant there is little chance of loss. * Add Nitrogen.—A leguminous cover crop such as clover, or beans, or vetch will add nitrogen to the soil (Fig. 44). This is generally understood by all who are familiar with farm matters but is frequently overlooked in orchard practice as well as else- where. These plants are able, through the bacteria which live in the lttle nodules on their roots, to take up and ‘‘fix’’ the free nitrogen of the air. They thus offer to the orchard man an abundant supply of nitrogen for his orchard in return for the effort and expense of sowing the seed. In fact the writer recalls one orchard in which crimson clover was used as a cover crop for a series of years, where the soil actually became too rich in nitrogen for the best condition of the trees. They made too much growth and the fruit was under-colored. The owner suspected what the trouble was, had the soil analyzed by his experiment station, which told him that his soil was too rich in nitrogen and advised him to change cover crops. He did so, using buckwheat for a few years, and the trouble was entirely corrected. This is not a common difficulty, but is mentioned to show the possibilities of the leguminous crop. As _ nitrogen is by far the most expensive fertilizer to buy and as the cover crop offers a convenient method of getting it almost without cost, it is certainly. a short-sighted policy of soil management which does not include leguminous plants often enough to fur- nish at least a large part of the nitrogen needed. A cover crop may hold the snow and leaves in the orchard during the winter. To do this to the best advantage it must be rather a stiff, upright crop, which is not the type of crop that all —“-" Fia. 44.—Crimson clover as a cover crop. This crop makes an ideal cover where it will grow well, but it needs good soil conditions, PLOWING UNDER COVER CROPS aIT gives the best results on soil washing and some other things. One has to choose therefore between this character and the others. in climates where the winters are severe, and where snow is likely to blow off from the orchard, this point of holding it as a pro- tection may be the all-important one and the orchardists may have to select an upright crop like soybeans or buckwheat or even use a mixture with corn or some other heavy plant in it, regardless of all other considerations. Protects Fallen Frwit.—The cover crop serves to protect the . fruit which drops. This is not usually considered very important and can often be disregarded, but with fruit such as Yellow Transparent and Red Astrachan apples, which ripen irregularly and have to be disposed of quickly in any ease, the drops are sometimes worth about as much as the hand picked fruit. Prevents Winter Injury of Roots.—It prevents the freezing and thawing of the soil and consequent injury to the roots during some winters. Any one who is not familiar with this effect will be surprised at the difference between a block of the orchard with a good cover crop on it, such as clover or vetch, and one with no erop or with a poor one. The well covered block wiil stay frozen through a long rain or spell of mild weather while the bare land freezes and thaws with every change in the temperature. In a few cases there may be other purposes served by the cover crop, but the above constitute the most important ones. Plowing Under Cover Crops.—A point which is frequently misunderstood and which should be considered, is the importance of the crop living over winter. There is often a prejudice, for example, against crimson clover and in favor of common red clover because the former does not always live over winter, while the latter does. It is said that while there may be a fine growth of the crimson clover when winter comes on, yet by spring (in cold climates) it has been killed, and has so dried up and dwindled away that there is little left to plow under. As a matter of fact, this does not in the least affect its value as a humus producer. There will be just as much humus added to the soil in the dried remains of the crop as there would have been in succulent tissues before they were killed. The only loss has been the water which has dried out of the stalks. 112 : COVER CROPS A shghtly different phase of the same prejudice is seen in some orchardists’ opinions of crops which do live over winter. Many men will insist on delaying plowing in the spring until a new growth can be produced, no matter how rank the growth may have been in the autumn, because they say that unless they do ‘‘there is so little to plow under.’’ It sometimes does look small in the spring, but it will make just as much humus as it would have in the autumn. While under certain conditions there may be no objection to allowing some growth in the spring; while, in fact, it may be a distinct advantage by producing extra humus and sometimes by drying out the soil; yet there is always great danger that it will be allowed to stand too long. On heavy soils this objection is particularly strong, for a big growth of the crop will dry out the soil very rapidly and, if the weather happens to turn dry at just the right time, the soil may easily become too dry and plow up in big lumps that are very difficult to break up. On the whole a crop which makes a big growth in the autumn but does not live over winter is to be preferred because it avoids this danger. Plants to Use.—A great many different plants are used as cover crops in the orchard, depending on the locality, the type of soil, the number of acres to be covered, the owner’s pocketbook and a number of other considerations. Table IV, however, in- cludes the most common ones. It gives also the usual rate per acre, the average price (though this varies greatly in different localities and in different years) and the cost of seeding an acre. The last column is very suggestive and is well worth careful study by the orchardist. Where one has but an acre or two. of orchard the cost for seed is not an important matter, but when it runs up to even ten acres the relative cost at $6.00 per acre or 16 cents per acre is certainly worth consideration. With some crops it is possible to allow a strip along each tree row to mature seed and then, by cross-cultivation when the time arrives for sowing the cover crop, to scatter this seed over the entire surface of the orchard. There seems to be no serious objection to this practice and it will reduce materially the running expenses of the orchard. Let us now run over the catalogue of crops given and suggest COW-HORN AND PURPLE-TOP TURNIPS Lis TaBLE IV,.—Amount and Cost of Cover Crop Seed. Crop Rate per Acre Price Cost per Acre PeleWHeN he 5. i. Sek no See tbo. $1.50 bu. $1.50 ROW PHBG Ole ee Yk lei alas wie 114 bu. 3.00 bu. 4.50 Cow-horn and purple top tur- MUR ates te See i cee ssc os 2 |b. 35 |b. .70 Wwati Mssex rape... 0.0.0. 2 Ib. .08 Ib. 16 (2 PEO Baga RI Gee eo 11% bu. 1.25: bu. 1.88 ee ices rote ee phot s 11% bu. 1.65 bu. 2.47 Crimpon clovere 20002 22. 2. 15 lbs. .10 Ib. 1.50 Mammoth red clover and com- MIO FE COVER 65)