CULTIVATION AND MULCHING 



sticks. Shoot and examine carefully. The ground should not 

 blow out, but should be loosened six or eight feet on each side 

 of the charge. 



Dynamite is the thing with which to dig holes for new 

 trees, to break up the whole soil three or four feet deep every 

 few years, and to help renovate old orchards, because it will 

 do these things more cheaply and better than they can be done 

 by any other means. If you have fruit trees which seem to 

 be standing still and which do not bear, no matter how big 

 they are, properly explode a charge in the soil around or between 

 them, and the trees will likely get to work. In a bearing orchard, 

 a proper charge midway between trees is always safe and is 

 generally very effective. 



In soil work with dynamite, the proper charge will heave 

 the ground over a space from six to twelve feet in diameter, 

 and as a by-product kill all insects and grubs. Under certain 

 instances tree holes should have the dirt blown out, but it 

 is generally best to merely loosen it up. A big shovel will 

 sink down to where the tree should go at one motion if the 

 ground has been heaved. Ditching in heavy, wet land can be 

 done sometimes to advantage with dynamite. In this work 

 heavier charges are placed close enough together to blow out 

 the dirt. 



After you have torn up the soil, harrow and roll it repeatedly. 

 Make the upper six or eight inches as fine as garden soil. This 

 will take time and work, but will save both in the next five 

 years. If orchard land is cared for properly in its early stages, 

 no heavy plowing will be needed later. There should be plenty 

 of vegetable matter in the soil when the trees are planted. 

 It is not necessary to turn furrows in plowing orchard land. 

 Cutaway or disc harrows are better than landside plows. 

 Mix the soil that's the thing. Stir it up. After you have the 

 work started, any kind of harrow, cultivator or drag will do 

 good work. 



After plowing, be sure to get the air-spaces between furrows 

 entirely filled. Air is needed in the soil, but never in larger 

 quantity than a ""chunk" the size of a pin-head at one place. 

 Each cubic inch of soil should have several hundreds of these. 

 Use rollers, clod-crushers, or soil-packers after plowing, until 

 you are certain there are no big air-spaces a few inches under 

 the surface. 



How cultivation feeds trees and saves moisture has been 

 explained already, but here are more details. Young orchards 

 of any kind always should be cultivated clean, from spring 

 until in July. Plow or tear up the soil as soon as ground is 

 dry enough to work, harrow after every rain, and every week 

 or ten days until it is time to sow the cover crop, or to mulch 

 for winter. 



Keep young trees hustling. They have to build a big frame 

 on which to carry their crops, and they have only a few years 

 to build it in. Make them grow all they can every year, just 

 so they stop in time to ripen their wood before frost. Young 

 trees can keep on growing with safety a month or six weeks 



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