CHAPTER VI 

 ORCHARD MANAGEMENT 



The usual operations that have to do with the main- 

 tenance of peach orchards include tillage, the interplanting 

 of crops, fertilizing, pruning, insect and disease control, 

 and in some regions irrigation. But little differentiated 

 from these operations are such more or less specialized fea- 

 tures of management as thinning the fruit, winter protec- 

 tion, heating or smudging to prevent injury from frosts 

 during the blossoming period or from other untimely tem- 

 perature conditions, and other operations as occasion may 

 require. 



While each of these major operations requires rather full 

 discussion in separate chapters, their inter-relationships 

 are so important and far reaching that brief reference to 

 them from that standpoint should be made in the present 

 connection. 



To a very considerable extent regularity of bearing, 

 productiveness, and longevity of the trees are a reflection 

 of good management, especially with respect to tillage, 

 fertility maintenance, pruning, and insect and disease con- 

 trol. The response made by the trees is nearly proportionate, 

 at least within certain limits, to the care which they receive, 

 the better the care and the wiser the management, the more 

 regularly productive during the longest period of time and 

 therefore the more profitable. 



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