OtJiei' Papers. 263 



CULTIVATING, MULCHING OR SEEDING OUR OR- 

 CHARDS. 



[paper read before the MISSOURI VALLEY HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY, MARCH, 1884, BY J. A. DURKES.] 



Nature is a productive agent recovering her exhausted powers 

 quickly in her own well-appointed ways ; but to man's creative 

 genius it has been given to assist her in producing those fruits his 

 wishes may dictate. Thus the apple tree, left to itself bears to 

 such an extent, that it requires one season, often two, of rest, to 

 enable it to form buds again, for fruiting, making what we term 

 the full and off years of bearing. 



Here we come to the aid of the natural resources of our trees 

 by judicious pruning, thinning out the surplus fruit, manuring 

 and a 'good state of cultivation, fair annual crops may be obtained. 



The apple tree needs plenty of food and good tillage, varied in 

 their application. If the tree stands in a grassy plot, how soon 

 will the condition of its fruit and growth respond to a complete 

 turning over and deep spading under of the sod ? A top dressing 

 of ashes or lime and manure, covered with straw or coarse litter of 

 any kind to act as a mulch, would give the same results, but not so 

 speedy. 



This leads us to the points of the subject before us — culti- 

 vating, or seeding, or mulching our orchards. We give preference 

 to neither method ; all are good and useful taken as a whole or in 

 part. They become necessary for the invigoration of our trees. 

 For the first four or six years after planting an orchard the ground 

 should be kept in a good state of tillage. Where it is not prac- 

 ticable to plow the spade should be used to turn the soil, in a circle 

 as far as the limbs of the tree extend. When this work is done — 

 but once in a season — fall is to be preferred. 



After this period the ground may be seeded in grass and clover 

 a few years and j^astured by swine, their droppings making a splendid 

 manure, and their occasional rooting over the sod in search of plant 

 roots, insects and the like, eating up all wormy and defective fruit, 

 all known to be very beneficial. 



Trees planted in soil very rich should .never be stimulated 

 much, an earlier checking of the wood growth is desirable where 

 fruit is the object, among these a full growth of grass may be per- 



