Inter-Planted Crops 125 



adaptability of the crop to the conditions where it is to be 

 used, and the needs of the orchard that are to be supplied 

 in the crop used. 



With some crops, there is a choice of variety which is 

 highly important; while in considering others, cost of seed 

 or some other factor quite apart from the usefulness of the 

 crop itself should determine the selection. 



Another feature in regard to the use of leguminous cover- 

 crops should perhaps have cautionary consideration, though 

 its real import is not fully known. Hedrick ^ has called 

 attention to the possible relationship that is not generally 

 recognized between the roots of peach trees and of certain 

 cover-crops when they grow in close contact with each 

 other. In case of peach trees grown in large pots with oats, 

 rye, blue-grass, and various other non-leguminous species, 

 the trees ripened their terminal growth long before frost 

 occurred, while trees similarly grown, but with legumes, in- 

 cluding crimson clover, peas, and beans, held their foliage 

 and the terminal growth did not mature until a frost oc- 

 curred the first of November. On examination of the pots 

 containing the trees, it appeared that there was no intimate 

 contact of the roots of the non-leguminous plants with the 

 peach roots, while the roots of the legumes were most in- 

 terminably intermingled with the peach roots. ^Miether 

 these trees were able in some way to make use of the nitro- 

 gen gathered from the air by the legumes is open to 

 doubt, though perhaps suggested by the behavior of the 

 trees. 



It is not to be presumed that the roots of a cover-crop 

 would intermingle with the trees' roots under orchard con- 

 ditions in the same degree that they do when grown in a pot. 

 1 Rural New Yorker, Vol. LXIII, No. 2864, p. 858. 



