EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



237 



Third, considerable attention has also been paid to cultivation and cover crops 

 for orchards. As the soil is of a sandy nature and mulching material difficult 

 to obtain, the orchards have been kept in thorough cultivation up to the middle 

 of July or the first of August, and a very satisfactory growth has been secured. 

 As continued cultivation soon results in the removal of the humus from the 

 soil, it has been customary for the past ten years to make use of some form of 

 winter cover crop. The results with these have been briefly summarized above. 



Fourth, pruning and training. Various methods of pruning and training the 

 different kinds of fruit have been tested. The best results have been secured 

 where the trees have been grown with rather short trunks, ranging from one 

 foot in the case of dwarf pears, sweet cherries and peaches, to about two and 

 one-half feet in the case of apple trees. When trained with high heads, there 

 has not only been much greater injury from the cracking of the trunks, especially 

 of cherry and peach trees, but the pruning and spraying, as well as the thinning 

 and gathering of the fruit, have been found to be much more difficult than when 





Fig. 4. — View in the Peach Orchard. Showing Effect of Heading Back. 



grown with short trunks. For several years the new growth, especially of peach 

 trees and of others that naturally formed open heads, was cut back about one- 

 half. After that the heading in was confined to preserving the symmetry of the 

 trees, except in the case of peaches where the leading shoots were cut back, 

 occasionally even below the growth of the previous year. In order to lessen the 

 injury from rot and other fungous diseases, as well as to heighten the color of 

 the fruit, the trees were grown with fairly open heads. 



In pruning the bush fruits, the new growth of blackberries and black rasp- 

 berries was cut back to the height of two to three feet according to the varieties, 

 but the red varieties were not headed back except perhaps in the case of a few 

 kinds that branch naturally. No other pruning during the summer is given 

 except to remove the old canes, but the following spring just before growth 

 starts, all surplus shoots are removed and the branches are cut back to a length 

 of about one foot. 



