58 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



March, igji 



Planting a Peach Orchard 



H. SI. Clare Fisher, 



THIS is a subject noon which there is 

 a diversity of opinion, but in treating 

 it I simply relate my own experience, 

 which covers a period of about twenty 

 years. During the past ten or twelve 

 years I have been endeavoring to find out 

 by practice the best way to plant a young 

 peach tree, and I feel that I have had a 

 fair measure of success. At the very be- 

 ginning is where the majority of orchard- 

 ists fail, for on the proper placing in the 



Fig. 1— Three Ye»r Old Pe«ch Tree Urprnneil 



The property of Mr. H. St. Clare Fisher, Qeen- 

 Bton, Ont. 



soil of a young tree depends the future of 

 that tree. 



There are four essentials in the plant- 

 ing of a peach orchard : 



1. Preparation of the soil. 



2. Selection of the trees, being careful 

 to select the proper varieties for your par- 

 ticular locality. 



3. Placing the tree in the ground in the 

 proper manner. 



4. Fertilization and cultivation the 

 first season. 



SOIL 



The best soil in which to plant a peach 

 tree is a deep sandy loam with a gravelly 

 sub.soil and a rock bottom, probably four 

 to five feet from the surface. T would 

 suggest that the ground be plowed in 

 small lands and well drained in the fall 

 of the year. Do not attempt to plant a 

 peach orchard in a field unless it can be 

 well drained with surface drains or has a 

 good system of under-draining. Work 

 the land very thoroughly in the spring, 

 levelling the field as well as you can. 

 Stake the field, using a. triangle; never 

 plow furrows in which to set the trees. 

 Set your stakes eighteen feet apart, north 

 and south, and twenty feet apart east and 

 west, which is close enough to set your 

 trees. Have your holes dug with a long 

 handled pointed shovel and large enough 

 so as not to cramp the roots of the tree. 

 Trim your tree to a whip, place it in the 

 hole with the point of the bud towards the 

 south-west, and have the tree leaning at 

 cjuite an angle in that direction, or in 



Queenston, Ont. 



the direction from which the prevailing 

 wind comes. Be sure to put surface earth 

 around the roots of the tree, and tramp it 

 as hard as you can, gradually filling the 

 hole until it is about two-thirds full. Hav- 

 ing the earth well packed or tramped 

 hard around the tree is very important. 

 .\s .soon as possible after your orchard is 

 planted take a truck load of fine ground 

 bone and sprinkle about a quart around 

 each tree on the outside of the hole. Have 

 men follow up with shovels mixing the 

 bone with the soil, at the same time fill- 

 ing up the other third of the hole, being 

 careful not to pack the earth on the sur- 

 face around the tree. I use a grade of 

 bone with an analysis of three per cent, 

 ammonia and twenty-three percent, phos- 

 phoric acid. Do not put green manure 

 around a newly set peach tree, or in other 

 words, do not mulch it. 



OXJLTIVATION 



As soon as an orchard is set and fer- 

 tilized start cultivating around the trees 

 with a one-horse cultivator or use a drag 

 cultivator with shoes on so that it will 

 not jump and touch the trees. Do not 

 attempt to get closer than six inches to 

 the tree for fear of striking it, as great 

 care must be exercised at this time not 

 to dislodge the trees. Use a hoe to stir 

 the earth immediately around the trees. 

 Never use a disk harrow in a peach or- 

 chard if you can avoid it and do not cul- 

 tivate deeper than three inches. After 

 your trees have nicely started or about 

 the middle of August place carefully 

 around each tree three or four forkfuls 

 of well-rotted compost manure. By this 



beside each tree, and cut tree off, leas- 

 ing each one in the orchard just thirt)' 

 inches high. During the season keep all 

 shoots rubbed so that the trunk of each 

 tree will be about fifteen inches high. 

 This, in my opinion, is low enough for .1 

 low-headed peach tree. 



Fig. 2.— The same tree as represented in Fig. 

 1 properly pruned. There are eighteen hundred 

 in the orchard just like this one. 



time cultivation should cease, but it must 

 be thorough up to this time, being care- 

 ful after every rain to go over your or- 

 chard with the cultivator and hoe, and 

 regularly, in any case, once every week. 

 In order to have your trees a uniform 

 size the following suggestions, if care- 

 fully carried out, will insure success. 

 Immediately after the trees are planted 

 take a stick thirty inches long, place 



Fertilizers for Fruit Growers 



Prof. R. Htrceari, O.A.C., Gaelpk, Oat. 



(Continued from last usnc) 

 From a German .source we take the 

 following results of a long continued ex- 

 periment of fertilizers on plums: The 

 value of the fertilizers during the ex- 

 perimental [period of thirteen consecutive 

 crops was $193.50; increa.sed yield of 

 crop worth $1,709.05. Profit, 81,515.45. 

 When potash was left out the profit was 

 reduced to $140; without the phosphoric 

 acid there was $108.57 profit, which w'as 

 still further reduced to $69.03 when nitro- 

 gen was the constituent left out in the 

 experiment. In this particular ca.se it is 

 evident that the lack of nitrogen influenc- 

 ed the results more than the lack of 

 either potash or phosphoric acid. 



Quoting again from German investiga- 

 tions on gooseberries, the following re- 

 sults are al.so very interesting: The total 

 value of the fertilizers used through thir- 

 teen continuous years of cropping was 

 worth $203.50; total value of the crop 

 due to the fertilizers, $2,035. J* '■'' ap- 

 parent that this would leave a profit of 

 $1,831.50. When any one constituent 

 was omitted the profit was very much re- 

 duced. With most of the varieties used 

 in the experiment potash had the greatest 

 influence, phosphoric acid next and the 

 nitrogen least. Evidence goes to show 

 th:it different varieties of the same kind 

 of fruit make use of the various mineral 

 constituents in different proportions. 



Strawberries have been found to re- 

 spond very readily to the application of 

 commercial fertilizers. A study of the re- 

 quirements of this crop is not so difficult 

 as that of the other fruits in as much as 

 the strawberry crop does not occupy the 

 ground for so long a time, and therefore 

 experiments do not have to be continued 

 for such long periods. Experiments seem 

 to show that the complete mixture of the 

 fertilizers will give the largest yields, but 

 that on ground in good condition the plot 

 receiving no nitrosren gave nearly as 

 good results as where this constituent 

 was added, while if potash or phosphoric 

 acid were omitted the yield seriously 

 diminished. 



EFFECTS OF NITROGEN 



One point particularly demonstrated 

 in all experiments with soft fruits is that 

 an excessive amount of nitrogen seems to 

 produce .soft fruit which will not ship well 

 and which decays early. This is particu- 

 larly true in wet seasons and with the 

 strawberry. 



{To he Continued) 



