334 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



quired. Wherever possible the pruning 

 knife or pruning- shears should be used in- 

 stead of the saw. Try to make as smooth 

 •a cut as possible. After the orchard has 

 been gone over with respect to pruning, all 

 wounds left thereby should receive a coat of 

 white lead paint which has been mixed with 

 linseed oil. There are many other materials 

 used for this purpose, but our experiments 

 here seem to show that white lead paint is 

 the most desirable from the point of expense 

 and efficiency. 



ORCHARD FERTILITY. 



The notion prevails in the minds of many 

 apple growers that apple trees do not re- 

 quire as much plant food proportionately as 

 do other crops. That this notion is wholly 

 erroneous is shown by the result of carefully 

 conducted experiments of Roberts published 

 in Cornell Bulletin 103. These show that the 

 growing of thirty-five apple trees per acre, 

 which makes the distances between trees 

 thirty-five feet, in twenty years production 

 of foliage and fruit, averaging ten bushels 

 per tree, requires plant food in the form of 

 nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid in 

 value amounting to $207.45. This twenty 

 years commences with the time the trees are 

 thirteen years of age, continuing until they 

 are thirty-three years old and it is assumed 

 that during the five years from thirteen to 

 eighteen they would average five bushels 

 per tree per year, ten bushels per tree per 

 year during the next five and fifteen bushels 

 per tree per year during the remaining ten 

 years. This, however, does not take into 

 account the enormous amount of fertility 

 which was required to develop the great 

 amount of wood represented by thirty-five 

 trees per acre. Compare this with the 

 amount of fertility removed by a wheat crop. 

 In twenty years cropping with an average 

 yield of fifteen bushels per acre and seven 

 pounds of straw to three pounds of grain, 

 the total value is $128.23 rernoved in the 



shape of nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric 

 acid, or $79.22 less than that required to 

 supply the waste in fruit and leaves of the 

 apple orchard. 



No intelligent farmer would expect to 

 grow wheat on the same area for twenty 

 years without the best of cultivation and 

 fertilizing ; yet everywhere we find apple 

 growers asking their soil to support a much 

 greater drain than wheat would cause. It 

 is known that some fruit growers are ask- 

 ing their land to support apple trees for 

 forty years in addition to annual secondary 

 crops, and this, too, without giving man- 

 ures or even cultivation. 



The question of the fertility of orchard 

 soil is one which has hitherto received little 

 or no attention from Illinois fruit growers. 

 This is largely because of the fact that 

 throughout a large portion of the state the 

 soil is exceedingly rich in plant food. In 

 fact, a considerable area, especially the cen- 

 tral portion, is so rich in the elements of 

 plant food as often to cause an excessive 

 growth of the woody portion of the tree, 

 thereby diminishing its fruit production. 

 On this account few growers of orchard 

 fruits in what is termed the corn belt of the 

 state would think for a moment of applying 

 fertilizers to their orchard soil. This, how- 

 ever, is no reason why the fruit growers in 

 the southern third of the state or in parts of 

 northern Illinois should think that their soil 

 can be uniformly productive without the ap- 

 plication of some of the elements of fertility 

 either in the form of applied manures or by 

 the growing of green crops. After a care- 

 ful study of the question we are thoroughly 

 convinced that there are hundreds of apple 

 orchards in this state which are literally 

 starved to death. In other words, these 

 orchards are on soils whose fertility has 

 either been exhausted or made unavailable 

 by injudicious management. 



At this point it is necessary to define what 

 is meant by the word fertility. In its broad- 



