Care of Fruit Trees. 



607 



quantity by thorougli tillage and tlie use of occasional cover 

 crops of crimson clover, peas or vetch. In fact, it seems to 

 136 easy to apply too much nitrogen 

 on some lands, causing the trees to 

 make a too heavy growth. Young 

 trees make light drafts of potash and 

 phosphoric acid, and it is probable 

 that apples and pears do not need 

 much fertilizing on good soils for the 

 first three or four years, if they are 

 given good cultivation, unless other 

 crops are grown with them. But just 

 as soon as the trees show an inclina- 

 tion to bear, judicious applications of 

 the mineral fertilizers may be made. 

 If this fertilizing is begun thus early 

 in the life of the orchard, and if the 

 tillage is good, the applications need 

 not be very heavy, but they should 

 be applied every year. Two or three 

 hundred pounds of high-grade muri- 

 ate of potash, and an equal weight 

 of some high-grade phosphate (as 

 Florida or South Carolina rock or 

 fossil bone) may be considered to be 

 good dressings. Stable manures are 

 -excellent, but they are so seldom 



143.— Roots of an apple tree in sod. 



to be had in suflBcient quantity that they are practically 

 beyond reach. A leading virtue of the stable manures is the 

 vegetable matter which they contain and which puts the soil 

 into good mechanical condition ; but this fiber can also be had by 

 the use of cover crops. 



In riursery lands, the soil is injured in its mechanical texture by 

 the methods of cultivation and treatment. The best nursery lands 



