256 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



cultivated late in the season and there is a little danger, in excessively 

 rich ground in planting strawberries on the peach orchard, of forcing 

 a late growth the first year. But if you can avoid (liis you can safely 

 plant strawberries in the i)each orchard, especially if you take the 

 plants away from the trees the next spring and then throw a liberal 

 amount of mulch up around the tree to preserve moisture. But it is 

 not an ideal cro]) for the peach orchard. We prefer potatoes the first 

 two years. After that we cultivate clean the forepart of the season 

 and how much and hoAV late we cultivate depends on whether they 

 are making little or full growth. This, of course, you understand is 

 to preserve the moisture and make available the j)lant food. 



So much for the peach. With the apple, pear and the plum es- 

 pecially we prefer to plant currants. We don't want our whole acre- 

 age in currants ; but on the richer ground we find them an ideal crop 

 to groAv in the orchard. In other Avords, in the orchard where we 

 don't i)lant currants we grow potatoes and straAvberries and alternat- 

 ing, keeping this up for five or six years until the trees begin to bear 

 quite freely, not heavily, of course. Then we begin the second stage 

 of the life of the orchard, and this consists of cultivation and clover 

 crops, beginning as early in the spring as possible. This is where 

 many make a mistake, especially those divided between orcharding 

 and farming. We plant the corn and sow oats and then go in and 

 plow the orchard; and that corn crop may yield between |20 and ,|40 

 per acre and to get that in the best condition you are neglecting a 

 crop that may return you all the way from |400 to $1,000 an acre, as 

 Mr. Tyson and Mr. Funk have stated. The orchard needs that mois- 

 ture that is being lost every day the ground is not stirred, the orchard 

 needs that and will return better pay than the oats field or corn 

 field. 



Work at the orchard first. There may be a little modification of 

 this in some instances. For instance, you have sand vetch growing in 

 the orchard, — and I consider that an ideal cover crop in many in- 

 stances, — if the orchard is reasonably young and not needing a heavy 

 supply of moisture, you will be justified in leaving that stand late, 

 for the sand vetch is not quite the ideal from the fact that the ideal 

 cover crop should make its growth in the fall, die down and he plowed 

 under in the spring. We have not found that ideal cover crop yet, but 

 sand vetch does not seem to rob the ground of moisture as rapidly in 

 the spring as other crops. If we let it stand a week or ten days later 

 than this and then plow under in our orchard the little moisture we 

 lost is compensated by the vast increase in fertility. I have another 

 orchard that T have rented, several miles from home where we can 

 not apply barnyard manure. We have not tried to grow anything in 

 it and this year we are using soy beans. I have had the ground plowed 

 and will drill in soy beans in a few days. This orchard is planted 35 

 feet apart each way and the trees are young and we can grow a cover 

 crop during the coming seson. For a cover crop to occupy the ground 

 at this time of the year I think there is nothing equal to soy beans. 

 We put tliem in with a grain drill, allowing every third hole to run 

 and cultivate with the sulky cultivator. That means cultivation of 

 the orchard through growing season and at the same time you are 

 growing a great deal of fertility there that is valuable. I believe as 

 a rule you can grow fertility in a young orchard cheaper than you 

 can buy it in sacks ; I believe as a general rule you can do this. This 



