high grade tankage. I never would put anything in tlie 

 way of slow acting nitrogen in the orchard because you 

 will be defeating the very object for which you are working 

 in trying to get mature fruit and as large as possible annual 

 yields ; so the fertilizer should be sown as soon as the 

 ground is plowed, and harrowed into tlie soil and made 

 available by continuous cultivation through the growing 

 season up to, say, July 1st, with us. under our conditions, 

 when the trees should begin to set their terminal buds. 



A great many are apt to want to grow their trees too 

 much.. and I never have seen a case under our conditions 

 Avhere trees grew 12, 15 or 18 inches on the tips of the limbs 

 over the trees where they could ever mature fruit : there- 

 fore, a reasonal)le amount of wood growth, such as can ma- 

 ture through the month of June by an early start in the 

 Spring, will suffice so far as the wood growth on the bearing 

 trees is concerned. Now, another very important thing and 

 probably the all imi:)ortant factor is the conservation or the 

 effect of soil moisture. I think that we are just beginning 

 to get to it, to get to this idea that soil moisture is a larger 

 factor in the growth and development of trees and fruit 

 than we have ever given it credit for, and with a great many 

 orchardists it is the real problem to battle with. Now, by 

 cultivating an orchard up to the Lst of July, it should be 

 tlioroughly harrowed, especially after rains, to conserve all 

 the spring moisture possible; that is just when the tree is 

 probably making the greatest demands on the moisture 

 contained in the soil, and Ave should conserve, under ordin- 

 f.Ty conditions, all the moisture in the soil, at least up till 

 the 1st of July. 



This, to my mind, is a very critical time Avith the 

 bearing fruit tree. In a majority of cases I think 

 it is a Avise thing to check this Avood groAvth at this time, 

 for various reasons. One is that Ave have fomid it is abso- 

 lutely necessary, in a cold climate, to mature our Avood, 

 that is the new groAvth of the tree, in order to avoid serious 

 winter injury. A great many orchardists have forced their 



