238 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



October, 1913. 



Picking, Grading and Packing Apples in the Orchard of Johnson Bros., Forest, Ont. 



First, to plant only healthy plants in other related plants have grown; third, 



setting out a new plantation ; second, 

 avoid planting where raspberries or 



to remove and burn old canes immedi- 

 ately after the fruit is gathered. 



Some Advantages of Fall Plowing 



B. Blanchard,' Ellershouse, N. S. 



THERE has been considerable di- 

 versity of opinion among orchard- 

 ists as to which is to be preferred 

 — spring or fall plowing. While under 

 some conditions spring plowing will give 

 better results than will plowing in the 

 fall, and in a few cases should be adopt- 

 ed entirely, yet on the whole we prefer 

 to do a large portion of our plowing in 

 the fall. Perhaps it might be well to 

 enumerate some of the conditions under 

 which spring plowing would be advis- 

 able, after which we can deal more par- 

 ticularly with the subject in hand. 



On sharply rolling land and on steep 

 hillsides spring plowing is always ad- 

 visable, because the soil is liable to 

 wash badly during the winter months. 

 If the soil is very sandy the wind, too, 

 is apt to carry a lot of it away. In or- 

 chards grown under such conditions, 

 cover crops should be grown and not 

 plowed under until the spring. They 

 hold the snow and thus in a large mea- 

 sure prevent freshets, which carry away 

 so much soil fertility from hilly land. 



CAREFUL WORK REQUIRED 



A case in which, if done at all, fall 

 plowing has to be done most carefully 

 is in renovating old orchards that 

 have been neglected and left in sod for 

 a number of years. To be effective, 

 fall plowing must be reasonably deep . 

 Otherwise, the furrows become com- 

 pact during the winter, and vi^hen the 

 furrows are thin there is nothing to cul- 

 tivate in the spring, and the ground 

 must be re-plowed. But in such or- 

 chards the root system is usually quite 



near the surface and if deep plowing 

 is practised the roots are so seriously 

 damaged that the trees receive a set 

 back from which they may require a 

 number of years to recuperate. 



An argument used by many against 

 tne practice of fall plowing is the ten- 

 dency to induce winter injury. Under 

 the conditions we have mentioned we 

 can readily realize how damage might 

 be done to the trees because of careless 

 plowing, but it has never been our ex- 

 perience that sun-scald and similar 

 troubles were brought about by fall 

 plowing. We have always believed that 

 such injury was due entirely to wea- 

 ther conditions, a few warm davs bring- 

 ing on a premature flow of sap during 

 late winter, after which a cold snap 

 would freeze the sap and burst the bark. 



V.-^LUABLK TIME SAVED 



One of the chief advantages of fall 

 plowing, to our mind, is the amount of 

 time which is saved thereby during the 

 busy spring season. As a general rule, 

 when land is ready to be plowed in the 

 spring it is ready to be worked. It is 

 obvious then that if the land is plowed 

 the previous fall, one can commence 

 cultivating earlier in the season to the 

 extent of the amount of time saved by 

 not having to do that same plowing in 

 the spring. It is in the early growing 

 season that we desire to stimulate our 

 trees and the earlier the better. The 

 trees need all the nourishment they can 

 obtain to set and carry a good load of 

 fruit. Later in the season the supply 

 of nourishment must be curtailed and 



the wood matured before frost. So we 

 plant cover crops. Early cultivation is 

 therefore a necessity. 



A most important factor to Ije con- 

 sidered is the destruction of injurious 

 insects. A large proportion of these 

 pests spend various stages of their life 

 cycle in the ground during the winter 

 months. When the land is turned over 

 their cocoons and egg masses are ex- ' 

 posed to the frost and the action of 

 the weather and destroyed. 



MAKES PLANT POOD 'AVAILABLE 



In increasing the available plant food 

 in the soil, fall plowing plays an im- 

 portant part. Frost and water are two 

 of the greatest disintegrating agencies 

 in nature. Heavy clay soils most par- 

 ticularly are benefited by their action. 

 The hard pan when exposed during the 

 winter is broken into particles and in 

 the spring works up nicely. We have 

 noticed that land which has a tendency 

 to heave badly and throw the trees out 

 is not nearly so liable to show this ten- 

 dency when fall plowed. 



The conservation of soil moisture is 

 an important factor in up-to-date or- 

 chard practice. There are very few 

 crops grown that do not require more 

 moisture than that which falls during 

 the growing season. Some require sev- 

 eral times more. It is apparent then 

 that the rain which falls during the win- 

 ter months must be saved for future 

 use. Here again fall plowing plays a 

 part. The loose soil that has been turn- 

 ed up absorbs and holds the rain and 

 melted soil which would otherwise large- 

 ly run off. 



CONSERVE MOISTURE 



Thus the subsoil becomes a reservoir 

 in which is stored the water needed the 

 following season. This water tends to 

 dissolve and with the aid of the frost 

 break up the complex soil compounds. 

 The soil also because it is more open is 

 more aerated, and therefore better suit- 

 ed to the growth of bacteria, which in 

 turn break up the organic matter of the 

 soil. Nitrates, which are so necessary 

 to the early spring growth of the tree, 

 are thus liberated when most needed. 



With labor ever becoming scarcer and 

 harder to obtain, how to employ the 

 help to the best advantage becomes an 

 acute problem. Here again fall plow- 

 ing proves advantageous. At this sea- 

 son of the year the teams are not much 

 required for other kinds of work, which 

 will not be the case next spring. To 

 the man who engages in other lines of 

 farming in addition to orcharding, the 

 advantage of getting as much plowing 

 as possible done in the fall is even more 

 evident. 



Thorough cultivation is the great se- 

 cret of success in all crops, whether 

 vegetable, orchard or farm. It it is a 

 choice between the two, cultivation is 

 much more valuable than irrigation. 



