Inter-Planted Crops 113 



A mulch-crop is one grown more or less permanently in 

 the orchard, such as the various clovers, alfalfa, and the like. 

 The usual plan is to cut the crop several times during the 

 season, leaving all or a part of it on the ground to serve as 

 a mulch. When mulch-crops are employed, the orchard 

 is not ordinarily tilled or cultivated, excepting possibly 

 where alfalfa is used, when a certain amount of early spring 

 tillage to improve the alfalfa may be done. It is rarely, 

 however, that a mulch-crop has any place in a peach orchard. 

 Hence no further discussion of it is needed here. 



x\ shade-crop is one planted, not primarily to supply humus 

 for improving the physical condition of the soil, nor to pro- 

 tect the roots of the trees against winter injury, but for the 

 purpose of shading the ground from the intense heat of the 

 sun. The need for this is most apparent in some of the hot 

 irrigated valleys in the inter-mountain states of the West 

 where at times the reflection of the sun from the water used 

 in irrigating, if run close to the trees, or where reflected from 

 the surface of the bare ground, may be so intense as to injure 

 the trees. However, a shade-crop may also serve every 

 purpose of a cover- or green-manure crop or even a mulch- 

 crop. 



The practical utility of filler-, cover-, green-manure, and 

 shade-crops in the management of peach orchards is now 

 presented. 



FILLER-CROPS 



That a filler-crop is secondary in importance, from every 

 standpoint of the orchard itself, has been indicated. Its 

 use makes a system of double cropping with the trees as 

 the primary crop. It is not expected, ordinarily, that 

 a filler-crop will be of any direct benefit to the trees, unless 



