GENERAL PRACTICE. RENOVATING OLD ORCHARDS. 9S 



are easily removed, at a few days' intervals, up to midsummer or later. Kubbed clean 

 out of the socket, there is nothing left to grow again, but cutting them is of no use, as 

 they will push as strongly as before. Leaving them until winter results in wood manu- 

 factured at the expense of the fruit and fruit buds, and cutting them away then makes 

 sure of clusters of shoots in the spring following, stronger and more numerous than ever. 

 These robbers must not be tolerated ; then the sap will flow direct to the fruitful parts, 

 and these will be strengthened by the pruning and enriching of the soil. 



There is still another important fact that . is apt to escape the attention of the 

 orchardist, namely, insufficient moisture in the ground for the support of the trees. 

 In a dry season the soil becomes quite parched, the rainfall not being more than 

 sufficient to damp the surface in summer, and in winter it may be inadequate to soak 

 the bottom soil, for the drier the soil the greater is its resistance to fluids. Consequently, 

 in a dry season, particularly when it is followed by a winter during which little rain or 

 snow falls, the trees languish through lack of moisture and nutrition in the soil some 

 distance below the surface where the roots are established. To obviate this, applying 

 liquid manure in winter has been practised with highly satisfactory results not that it 

 is not beneficial when applied in summer, for it is when the earth is moist, but because 

 its application in winter secures more certain enrichment and moistening of the bottom 

 soil. Distributed on the surface when the ground is dry, it is more than half wasted ; 

 when it is moist the manurial matter is diffused more evenly over a larger area and to a 

 greater depth. That is one reason for using liquid manure in winter, but a greater is 

 that manurial substances, to benefit the ensuing crop of fruit to the fullest extent, must 

 be stored in the soil, and available for absorption by the roots, from the dawn of active 

 growth in the trees. In winter, when the soil is moist but not waterlogged, it is in 

 a fit state for retaining the manurial matters in the liquid, most of which are seized 

 and held, the water passing away in a filtered state ; therefore, the contents of cesspools, 

 manure-tanks, or pits in farmyards, with the drainage of dunghills, emptied and poured 

 over orchards whenever the liquid passes freely into the ground in winter, cannot fail to 

 benefit enfeebled trees. The liquid, unless very strong, may be applied undiluted, and, 

 if the ground is level and porous, it will enter readily, but where the ground inclines 

 sharply, and the texture is close, it may run off to the hollows where it is not so much 

 wanted. To facilitate the liquid entering, holes may be made with a crowbar from the 

 stems of the trees outwards as far as the branches extend. The deeper, wider, and 

 more numerous these conduits are the better, charging them repeatedly until the bottom 



