The Canadian Horticulturist. 55 



LATE CULTIVATION. 



ANY writers on fruit culture have advocated the cessation 

 of cultivation early in the season. Some stop in Sep- 

 tember, some in August, some in July, and some in 

 June. Some zealous champions have made the assur- 

 ance doubly sure by refusing to cultivate at all. This 

 early closing doctrine may have done gooJ in northern 

 regions. It certainly has done much harm further south. 

 The short period cultivators have been the short crop gatherers. The longer 

 the period, the longer the growth, and the greater the product, as a rule. The 

 man who cultivates for a short period and then tries to recover his place on the 

 following season, gets more work than the man who cultivates the season 

 through. 



For over twenty years I have cultivated all ordinary fruits and nursery 

 stock the season through, and have traced no losses from the extra growth pro- 

 duced thereby. 



I have watched other plantations where every degree of cultivation pre- 

 vailed. The early closing man has some advantages at times. He grows a crop 

 of weeds which cover the ground and make a mulch which prevent the frost 

 from penetrating the ground to the damage of the grape vines or peach trees. 

 A large growth of weeds sometimes prevents the early frosts from taking all the 

 strawberry blossoms. 



Personally, however, I am willing that others shall enjoy all the blessings 

 that weeds can confer on them ; I prefer to use some other mulch or take my 

 chances. If there really is an objection to early autumn cultivation because of 

 late growth, thereby promoted, there cannot, from the same reason, be any 

 objection to cultivation after the leaves have fallen. I believe that a late autumn 

 stirring of the soil is very useful in most cases ; it kills the many perennial weeds 

 and grasses that sprout in autumn, and get firmly established in the spring, before 

 the cultivation starts. It loosens up the soil, and thus prevents the frost from 

 penetrating deeply. 



To the novice I say, cultivate early, often, and late. If you chance to 

 plow under a few advocates of non cultivation you will get the utmost good 

 out of them. 



E. MORDEN. 



There are four fundamental operations upon which all permanent success 

 in most kinds of orchard culture depend, and I think that their importance lies 

 in the order in which I name them, tillage, fertilizing, pruning, spraying. Spray 

 ing is the last to be understood, but this fact should not obscure the importance 

 of the other three. — L. H. Bailey. 



