The Bulletin. 11 



slopes it is found that the soils on them are almost invariably thinner 

 and poorer than on northern slopes. Comparisons in the growths of 

 natural forests on northern and southern slopes bear out the same 

 idea. Western slopes give brighter colors of fruit than eastern ones, 

 but they get the hottest rays of the sun, and trees on them are much 

 more subject to sunscald. By care in cultivation and pruning many 

 of the drawbacks due to slope can be overcome, but in any case the 

 sloping lands are to be preferred to level ones for commercial orchard- 

 ing. 



The steepness of the slope on which it is practicable to plant 

 orchards will depend on circumstances. One often finds apple trees 

 in mountain regions that are producing large quantities of beautiful 

 fruit in places that to a plainsman would scarcely seem to be accessi- 

 ble with a flying machine. There is little doubt about the trees doing 

 well on very steep and even on rocky locations, but it is often next to 

 impossible to harvest the fruit there economically. Mountain coves, 

 even when high up in the mountain sides, offer the best possibilities 

 for apple growing because they have natural irrigation and excellent 

 drainage, and their soils are usually rich from the washing of the 

 enclosing slopes. Often, while steep, high ridges may be entirely 

 unsuited for apple trees, the coves which they contain may be almost- 

 ideal for the same crop. Nature never intended that the greater part 

 of mountain lands should bear anything but forest. Man in moun- 

 tain regions too often invades nature's realm, and thus we see washed 

 and gullied fields on which cultivation is impracticable. Orchards 

 can profitably go higher up the slope than any other agricultural crop, 

 but our better judgment should not allow them to trespass on nature's 

 domain. 



• SOILS FOR APPLE ORCHARDING. 



Apple trees will grow on a great variety of soils, but they feel most 

 at home and give their best results on deep, rich clays and loams. 

 Why they prefer these soils it is impossible to say, but apple trees 

 seem to be suited to clays just as cacti are to desert sands. The early 

 or summer apples do well on light or sandy soils because they ripen 

 their crop before the hot season,-when moisture is scarcest. Late fall 

 ■ or winter varieties, which have to develop their fruit in the hot sum- 

 mer, when moisture is hardest to get, must have a soil that is retentive 

 of moisture. Muck soils are rich and contain abundant moisture, but 

 they produce large, rank-growing trees with tender terminals that 

 produce poor fruit. 



BEST RESULTS ON RICH SOILS. 



Apple soils should be rich and they should not be called upon to 

 produce anything but apples. It takes a great deal of fertility in 

 the land to produce the wood of the trees on an acre of orchard. The 



