The Bulletin. 23 



land cultivation is the surest if not the most economical way of retain- 

 ing soil moisture. On rough, rocky or steep lands, such as are com- 

 mon in mountain regions, where tillage is difficult, modifications of 

 the sod or the sod-mulch methods. will be found advantageous. The 

 Hitchings method of orcharding, of which a great deal has been heard 

 of late, advocates the clearing roughly of the land from woods and the 

 setting of the little apple trees among the stumps. No cultivation is 

 given, but the grass and weeds are cut away with the scythe and 

 timothy seed sown so* that a sod will be formed. As the stumps rot 

 sufficiently to be removed conveniently they are taken out ,and the 

 ground is worked and seeded down to timothy. The orchard is then 

 mowed with a mowing machine once or twice during the season and 

 the grass allowed to lie and rot on' the ground and form a partial 

 mulch. Under certain conditions some growers have reported good 

 results from this method. My own experience and observation com- 

 pel me to advocate cultivation, and cultivation only, for the growing 

 tree. After it has a fair root range it may be able to take care of 

 itself and give good results in partial sod or under sod mulch. The 

 color of the foliage and the amount of wood a young tree is able to 

 form will indicate whether or not it is able to compete successfully 

 with the vegetation beneath it. After trees are of bearing age there 

 is no place in which they are better able to go without cultivation than 

 in mountain regions. On land difficult of tillage and in terraced 

 orchards the ground may be sown to grass and the grass cut and 

 allowed to rot beneath the trees. If the trees are not occupying the 

 whole soil with their roots it is best to pile the grass in the form of an 

 individual mulch about each tree. Where the tree roots spread so as 

 to cover the whole ground the grass may be allowed to decay where it 

 falls. In most cases it would pay the orchardist to go a step farther 

 than this and apply in addition any cheap material that could be 

 readily obtained to thicken the mulch. 



ORCHARD FERTILIZERS. 



If we added together the sum total of injury to orchards from 

 insects, diseases and frosts we would then have only a fraction of the 

 losses due to poverty-stricken soils. "Saul and Jonathan may have 

 slain their thousands, but David hath slain his tens of thousands." 

 A great many more trees die of slow starvation on impoverished soil 

 than perish from all other causes'. If farmers gave their corn or cot- 

 ton or truck crops no more fertilizer than they do their fruit trees 

 they would not expect a crop. Somehow or other a tree is expected 

 to take care of itself without cultivation or plant food, and even while 

 the soil about it is growing another crop or is tramped hard by stock 

 it is supposed to produce a crop of fruit. Under such circumstances, 

 instead of producing fruit (the product of its surplus energy) it has 



