CHAPTER X 

 PREPARATION FOR ORCHARD PLANTING 



The two essentials in preparing land for trees or vines are deep and 

 thorough cultivation, and provision for drainage, unless the situation 

 is naturally well drained. Drainage will be considered in connection 

 with irrigation in another chapter. In this place, however, by way of 

 emphasis, it may be remarked that high land is not necessarily well 

 drained, although the general feature of the surface may be an incline, 

 nor is low land necessarily wet, although the surface may be apparently 

 level. For horticultural purposes the drainage of the land must be 

 considered on the hillside as well as in the valley, for reasons which 

 will be more fully set forth in the chapter on drainage. 



The preparation of land for fruit planting should begin with grad- 

 ing. In irrigated orchards this is essential for the equal distribution 

 of water. Even where irrigation is not anticipated, it is of decided 

 advantage to smooth down hummocks and fill sags which are likely to 

 collect water in the rainy season. As has been shown in Chapter III, 

 this can be done on most California soils without danger of uncovering 

 a sterile subsoil. Some intimation of the method of grading is given 

 at the close of Chapter VII. In preparation for the irrigated orchard, 

 and irrigation is now widely employed even in regions where formerly 

 rainfall was the sole reliance, it is important that accurate grading 

 should be done and the use of the surveyor's level and grade stakes 

 will be found very desirable. All moving of soil should precede the 

 general plowing. 



For the planting of orchard or vineyard the land must be put in as 

 good tilth as possible, and extra expenditure to secure this will be 

 amply repaid in the after-growth of the trees and vines. If practicable, 

 it will be all the better to have the process of preparation begin a year 

 before the trees or vines are to be set. This is true either with newly- 

 cleared land, as has been described, or with old grain or pasture land 

 which is to be used, leaving the surface rough during the winter, 

 facilitates the access of air to the lower layers of the soil, and in a 

 certain sense may be said to sweeten and enliven it. Following in the 

 furrow with a subsoil plow is very desirable, either at the first plowing 

 or later. Such treatment of old grain land breaks up the old hardpan,* 

 which has probably been formed by years of shallow culture. The 

 preparation should continue during the following summer, and can 

 often be made both thorough and profitable by the growth of a summer 

 "hoed crop," the culture of which will kill out many weeds and secure 

 good pulverization of the soil. If no summer crop is grown, the land 

 should be kept in cultivation by plowing the weeds under as long as 

 the surface soil retains moisture enough to start them. A special 

 advantage of such summer-fallow in regions where the rainfall is apt 



*In this connection the term means "plow-sole." Treatment of true hardpan will be 

 described in the next chapter. 



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