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106 E. Jefferson Street, SOUTH BEND, IND. 



Some Phases of Alfalfa as a Crop in the Orchard 



By P. S. Darlington, Horticultural Inspector at Large, Wanatchee, Washington 



UP until recent years the fruit busi- 

 ness in this state has been on a 

 very unstable basis. We clean 

 cultivated our orchards, kept little or 

 no live stock, and perhaps not even a 

 garden. We were so enthusiastic over 

 the fruit business that we forgot that 

 there might come a year when there 

 would not be a profit in the fruit busi- 

 ness with which we could buy our pro- 

 visions at the store. We have since 

 seen some such years. We have seen 

 years when the credit of a good many 

 of our fruit growers at the grocery 

 store was not gilt edge, and in fact 

 some of them got hungry and walked 

 out. In 1911 we shipped into Wenat- 

 chee 150,000 pounds of butter, 20 car- 

 loads of canned milk, 200 gallons of 

 fresh milk a day, 42,000 dozen eggs, 20 

 carloads of packing house products and 

 about 1800 tons of hay. Our farmers, 

 if they could be called that, were going 

 to town and buying their milk, butter, 

 eggs, meat, etc. Wenatchee probably 

 carried this condition to greater ex- 

 treme than most other sections in the 



state, but perhaps necessity has caused 

 the orchardists of Wenatchee to ad- 

 vance farther toward correcting this 

 condition than has been the case with 

 the orchardists of most other districts. 

 Clean cultivation was not only starv- 

 ing our orchardists but was also starv- 

 ing our orchards. If there is anyone 

 here that does not know what a starv- 

 ing orchard looks like, just take a drive 

 out through any of the older orchard 

 sections next summer and you will see 

 here and there an orchard with small, 

 sparse and yellowish looking foliage, 

 red or yellowish bark and probably a 

 light crop of small apples. These are 

 indications of partial starvation. This 

 condition may be brought about by any 

 one of a number of different causes, but 

 whatever the cause the effect is partial 

 starvation. In some cases it may be due 

 to lack of water, but since all plant 

 food must be taken up in the form of 

 solution lack of water is starvation. In 

 a light, sandy soil it may be due to too 

 much water, in which case the soluble 

 elements of plant food are leached 



away. It may be due to an impover- 

 ished soil, but there are comparatively 

 few of our soils but what contain 

 enough of the elements of plant food 

 to properly nourish the trees if the 

 elements of plant food that are in the 

 soil are made available to the tree. This 

 appearance of starvation is most fre- 

 quently due to the fact that the ele- 

 ments of plant food which are in the 

 soil in abundance are, on account of 

 the lack of the proper physical condi- 

 tion of the soil not made available to 

 the tree. An ideal apple soil is a rich 

 heavy loam. But this type of soil as 

 well as other types, if clean cultivated 

 for a period of years becomes void of 

 humus and organic matter. The soil 

 particles then readily run together. In 

 this condition the soil breaks up cloddy. 

 It puddles easily when wet. It does not 

 take water readily. In fact a strata just 

 beneath the surface cultivation devel- 

 ops, which becomes almost impervious 

 to water and almost as hard as hard- 

 pan. A soil in this condition, though it 

 may be ever so rich in the elements of 



