HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT 



longer than bearing trees. The cultivation keeps them sup- 

 plied with available plant-food and with sufficient moisture. 

 Start cultivation of apples before the buds even swell in spring. 

 See that trees are hoed around. A half-penny's worth of work 

 will do wonders for your young trees. This early cultivation 

 is most important and we always think that it is worth more 

 than twice the work done a month later. 



As for the depth to work, go deep while you can. The 

 first or second working each spring should reach a foot below 

 the surface in all the space not occupied by roots. Later bar- 

 rowings need go only three inches deep, and two inches will 

 do. Where roots are, and close up under the trees, four inches 

 in as deep as the ground should be worked. But remember 

 this working so often directly under the branches of a tree is 

 of far less value, either in conserving moisture or in feeding 

 that tree, than working the space from the ends of the branches 

 out to the next tree, because three-fourths of the feeding roots 

 are beyond the branch tips. 



Never cut off a valuable limb to get under it with team and 

 tools. Better by all means depend on harrows lapping over 

 there. Bearing orchards should be worked the first time in 

 spring six or eight inches deep, if they have been used to that 

 depth all their lives. If they have been in sod, tear up only 

 four inches of soil, because many roots will be even higher than 

 that. One of the values of cultivation lies in making the roots 

 go deeper, keeping them away from the dry, hot and cold sur- 

 face, and down where they can feed all the time. 



Some of the pictures here show bearing trees which have no 

 space at all under the limbs. There are great advantanges in 

 this system when it comes to spraying and picking. But cul- 

 tivation under such trees is impossible, and the way to handle 

 them is to cover the ground under the limbs six to eighteen 

 inches deep with hay or straw every year. When trees are 

 first planted, this mulching for three or four feet around each 

 is the best thing that can be done. 



Care must be taken to move the mulch back about a foot 

 from the tree before every winter to guard against damage 

 by mice, and in no case should the mulch be closer than six 

 inches to the trunk, summer or winter. The ground should 

 be heaped up slightly about the trees, too. Mice will not cross 

 this open space. This mulch will save the moisture under it; the 

 trees can be fed just the same, and in many ways it is better 

 to mulch under the limbs and cultivate up to the mulch than 

 to try to work all the surface. In -southern Ohio can be seen 

 a practice of gathering weeds and trash of all sorts and hauling 

 it into the orchard around the trees. Rome Beauty, York 

 Imperial, and other similar apples respond wonderfully to this 

 treatment. 



The sod-mulch system of orcharding is this same idea car- 

 ried further. The whole surface of the ground is covered with 

 a stiff, thrifty sod of blue grass, timothy, red top and clover, 

 or with almost any permanent grass that will ^make hay. A 

 legume helps in supplying nitrogen. Then this is kept mowed 



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