ii6 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



May, 1912 



for any length of time in cold storage. 

 The best that can be done is to keep 

 them in a firm condition for transporta- 

 tion and marketing at reasonable dis- 

 tances. The refrigerator car is good as 

 far as it goes, but it is weak when de- 

 pended on for prompt cooling. The pro- 

 portion of ice to the contents of a full 

 car is necessarily very small, and when 

 a car is filled with warm fruit, it takes 

 too long to reduce the temperature. This 

 is all the more noticeable if the car itself 

 has not been chilled before the fruit is 

 loaded . 



A temperature of forty degrees may be 

 considered about the minimum pos<;ible 

 temperature in a refrieerator car in 

 warm weather, but it seldom goes below 

 forty-four or forty-six unless the heat is 

 out of the fruit before it is loaded. If 

 the fruit is warm when loaded into the 

 car, it will tnke from two to three days 

 to bring the temperature down and the 

 car will have to be kept well iced in fhi^ 

 meantime. All this time the ripening 

 process is proceeding rapidly. 



If any plan can be devised whereby 

 the chilling of the fruit can be accom- 

 plished in a few hours instead of taking 

 days, the fruit will carry much farther 

 and in better condition. There is this 

 further advantage that fruit which is to 

 be promptly cooled after picking can be 

 safely allowed to remain loneer on the 

 tree and thus reach a fuller development 

 of its quality. The day is coming when 

 the matter of quality will be more highly 

 aopreciated. Just now a great deal of 

 emphasis -is given, and I think justly so, 

 to questions of appearance, packing and 

 packages, but there will be more uni- 

 formity in this respect as time goes on 

 and the other matter will come more to 

 the front. 



PRE-OOOLING 



The adoption of pre-cooling on a large 

 scale has been confined almost entirely 

 to the Pacific slope in the United States. 

 The i-onditions under which this system 

 has been developed, especially in Cali- 

 fornia, find no exact parallel in Canada, 

 yet I am inclined to think that there is 

 a limited scope for the operation of such 

 plants in this country. The Niagara 

 District probably offers the best oppor- 

 tunity for successful operation. 



Pre-cooling may be carried out either 

 by placing the fruit in a cold storage 

 warehouse or by having it cooled in the 

 car after it is loaded for shipment. It is 

 the latter method which is attracting 

 most attention as being the more prac- 

 ticable of the two. There is, however, 

 no difference in principle and the system 

 of car-cooling is favored largely because 

 it saves time and the extra handling of 

 the fruit in and out of the warehouse. 



The cooling of a car may be complet- 

 ed with a well equipped and properly de- 

 signed plant in about four or five hours. 

 {Continued next month) 



What Cultivation Shall I Give My Orchard ? 



T. G. Bunting Central Experimental Farn\, Ottawa 



NO phase of orchard management is 

 of more importance than orchard 

 cultivation, and yet many growers 

 do not give it the attention that they give 

 to spraying, pruning and handling of the 

 fruit. We cultivate our orchards for three 

 main reasons, under which all the benefits 

 derived from cultivation may be said to 

 come, and these reasons are : First, cul- 

 tivation aids in bringing the unavailable 

 plant food in the soil into a form avail- 

 able to the plants ; second, cultivation 

 conserves the soil moisture; and third, 

 cultivation keeps down the weeds. 



It is well to have a thorough under- 

 standing as to why we cultivate our or- 

 chards, and as the reasons have been 

 enumerated it will be desirable to con- 

 sider them carefully before making any 

 recommendations. It is generally known 

 that soil suitable for orchard planting 

 contains an abundance of plant food. 

 That is, the chief essential elements, such 

 as nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and po- 

 tash are in most soils in sufficient quan- 

 tities to last a long time, provided it nil 

 could be made use of by the tree. TRe 

 greater part of this plant food is in a 

 form that cannot be made use of bv the 

 trees until it has been made available f)v 

 the chemical and bacterial action wh'ch 

 is going on in the soil. 



IMPORTANT CONDITIONS 



These two actions, which should be 

 continually going on, when the ground 

 is not frozen, are largely aided by a suit- 

 able temperature, an abundant supply of 

 air and a plentiful supply of water, with- 

 out an excess of water. Therefore, we 

 must supply as far as possible the con- 

 ditions suitable for the most rapid re- 

 actions in the soil. This is done, firstly, 

 by giving good drainage, which in re- 

 movin r the surplus water from the soil 

 allows the soil to warm up much more 

 fiUicki)- than it otherwise would, as water 

 requires more heat to warm it up to a 

 given temperature than does the soil ; 

 secondly, by cultivation which loosens 

 up the soil and tends to assist in warm- 

 ing it up as there then being better aer- 

 ation the air will impart its heat to the 

 soil ; and thirdly, the soil being better 

 aerated the bacteria can secure the re- 

 quired amount of air, including nitrogen. 



Now as cultivation cannot be given 

 until the soil is dry enough it is neces- 

 snrv that the soil should be sufficiently 

 well drained to permit of the cultivation 

 being given at a time when it is desired 

 that these reactions take place most 

 rapidly in the soil. When is this most 

 necessary? If we consider the needs 

 and habits of the tree it will give us a 

 fair indication. The sap in the trees 

 starts to flow quite early in the spring, 



even before the frost is out of the 

 ground, and visible growth of the tree 

 begins on an average about May first 

 to fifteenth. The greater part of the 

 growth of the tree is made in the latter 

 part of May and June, after which date 

 the fruit is bemg brought t) maturity 

 and the buds are being fully developed 

 for next year's growth, so this, May and 

 June, would be the period in which the 

 greatest supply of plant food would be 

 necessary . 



BEGIN CULTIVATION EARLY 



In order to have this large supply of 

 plant food available during May and 

 June we must begin our cultivation much 

 earlier than this in order that the bac- 

 teria busy in the soil may have a chance 

 to multiply and do their work. As the 

 spring advances and the soil becomes 

 drier and warmer, the bacterial and 

 chemical actions go on at a very rapid 

 pace. 



It is necessary, therefore, to begin our 

 cultivation in the orchard just as early 

 in the spring as we possibly can so that 

 at the time the trees are beginning to 

 make their greatest growth there will oe 

 the largest amount of plant food avail- 

 able. This cultivation can begin in many 

 orchards as early as the last part of 

 April and then be followed up at fre- 

 quent intervals until the end of June or 

 middle of July, by which time the wood 

 growth has been made. 



CONSERVE SOIL MOISTURE 



The second reason for cultivation is 

 for the conservation of soil moisture. It 

 has been proved that if a soil mulch is 

 maintained over a field there will be a 

 minimum amount of water lost by eva- 

 poration from that field as compared to 

 whete the field is left uncultivated, and 

 the surface hard and compact. In Cali- 

 fornia, where water is very valuable, it 

 has been found necessary to maintain a 

 soil mulch of from three to six inches 

 during the dry season when irrigation is 

 the rule in order to prevent the loss of 

 the moisture in the soil. Likewise, in 

 the dry-farming areas they depend on 

 this soil mulch for the conservation of 

 the water. 



In our orchards of Ontario a soil mulch 

 of from one to two inches will be suffi- 

 cient to prevent a wasteful loss of the 

 soil moisture, and there is hardly a year 

 passes but that our orchards suffer from 

 a drought. This loss may be very not- 

 iceable, as in the dropping of the fruit 

 after a prolonged drought, or it may 

 not be so apparent but felt in a less vig- 

 orous growth of our trees and a conse- 

 quent loss in the amount of the crop in 

 future years. 



(Continued next month) 



