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The Cornell Reading-Courses 



ground, or sometimes the orchard is used for pasture. Generally it is 

 desirable to break up this sod and bring the orchard into good cultivation. 

 This work should be done with care, in order not to disturb too many of 

 the roots. One may proceed in several ways, as follows: 



(a) Where the branches are high enough to make cultivation possible 

 beneath the trees, the ground should be plowed early in the spring. The 

 sod can be broken up, perhaps, with a cutaway harrow, and later destroyed 

 further by a spring-tooth harrow. Although this method of cultivation 

 will not be entirely satisfactory the first year, nevertheless the ground 



Fig. 232. — A neglected Baldwin tree that produced a large crop of fine fruit after one 



year of care 



will be broken up well enough to make a good seed bed for a cover crop, 

 which should be planted about the first of August. Buckwheat may be 

 used as a cover crop for the first 3^ear; the character of root growth of 

 this plant helps to break up the sod further, and by the following spring 

 cultivation is easy. Each spring thereafter the orchard should be plowed 

 and cultivated thoroughly until about the first of August, at which time 

 a cover crop should be planted. The best crops for this purpose are buck- 

 wheat, rye, mammoth clover, vetch, crimson clover, and cowhom turnips. 

 These may be sown separately or in combination, the latter being preferable, 

 (b) In many orchards the branches are so low that one cannot culti- 

 vate close to the trees. In such cases the following plan gives good results: 



