APPLE 



Establishing and managing the orchard on the prairies 



and plains. Fig. 276. 



Preparation of land. The fundamental principles of 

 proper preparation of soil for orchard planting in the 

 mid-continental country are much the same as those 

 that are set forth for other regions, although they may 

 differ somewhat in relative importance. One of the 

 first things to be considered is the matter of putting the 

 soil in such condition that the entire root-system of 

 the apple tree may withstand, without injury, any 

 period when the soil is filled with water. Unfortunately, 

 the importance of this is not generally nor fully realized, 

 oven among experienced orchardists. The principle 

 that apple roots must have a constant supply of air in 

 order to do their work should never be lost sight of. 

 Stagnant water cuts off the supply of air to the roots 

 and very quickly impairs the health of the root-system. 

 Excepting on such soils as deep porous loess, or when 

 the subsoil is of such a sandy or gravelly nature as to 



APPLE 



327 



276. A ten-year-old Nebraska apple orchard. 

 The trunks are protected from the sun by board jackets. 



let the surplus water pass off readily, it may be laid 

 down as a general principle that thorough tiling is 

 fundamental to the highest degree of regular and 

 abundant crop-production and longevity of the apple 

 tree. On land where the general slope is sufficient to 

 carry off the surface water and even on hillsides, tiling 

 may be, and often is, essential to the best success. The 

 lines of tile should be not less than 4 rods apart and in 

 many cases 2 rods apart gives enough better results to 

 more than repay the extra expense. Even in arid re- 

 gions, progressive orchardists are learning that, under 

 irrigation, in many places it becomes necessary to 

 under-drain the land so as to prevent the seepage and 

 waste-water from water-logging the soil and damaging 

 the root-system of the trees. 



Humus. It is highly important that the orchard 

 soils have an abundance of humus to begin with, and 

 that the supply be continually kept up by the use of 

 either green manures or barnyard manure or both. 

 The humus not only puts the soil in a more fertile con- 

 dition but increases its moisture-holding capacity and 

 gives it greater ability to withstand drought. The 

 necessity of promptly getting rid of surplus water in 

 the soil has already been emphasized. It is equally 

 important to conserve soil moisture so as to carry the 

 tree unharmed through any periods of drought that 

 may occur either in summer or winter. Generally 

 speaking, this can best be done in the mid-continental 

 regions by thorough tillage during the growing season, 

 followed by the growing of cover-crops. In places 

 where soils wash so badly that this practice cannot be 

 followed, perhaps the next best way to develop the 

 capacity of the soil to hold moisture is by the use of 

 barnyard manure and the growing of clovers or other 

 crops that can be mowed twice or more during the 

 season and allowed to rot on the ground. 



It is well to grow grain or some cultivated crop on the 

 land the season previous to planting the orchard. The 

 land may then be fall-plowed to a good depth and disked 

 in the spring, or it may be plowed in the spring and 

 disked just before planting. North of the latitude of 

 southern Iowa, spring planting is always to be preferred, 

 while to the southward, orchards may be planted either 

 in fall or spring. In the case of fall planting, two or 

 three furrows should be turned towards the tree on each 

 side of the row as a matter of protection from alternate 

 thawing and freezing about the roots and to turn away 

 surface water from the trunk. 



In planting the tree it is essential that the first earth 

 that is put in the hole should at once be tramped about 

 the roots, and this process repeated as the hole is filled. 

 Great care must be taken in this region to keep the 

 trees from drying out in handling them while they are 

 being transferred from nursery to orchard. Trees 

 should be kept perfectly dormant till planted. Nursery 

 stock should be neither accepted nor planted after its 

 buds have started growth. Sometimes when such stock 

 is transferred promptly from nursery to orchard on a 

 rainy day, it may grow well, but as a rule it dies or 

 makes but feeble growth. 



Budded apple trees should not be planted in any part 

 of the upper Mississippi Valley for the reason that when 

 such trees are set in the orchard the point of union 

 between the top and the seedling root comes at or near 

 the surface of the ground, thus exposing the root to 

 greater liability of suffering winter injury than when it 

 is buried more deeply. By using a long cion grafted on 

 a short piece-root, it is possible to produce a nursery 

 tree that will permit of planting the seedling root 

 deeply. During the history of apple-growing in the more 

 northern parts of the mid-continental apple districts, 

 it has repeatedly happened that when the hardier 

 cultivated varieties have been budded on some tender 

 seedling roots, the roots have been winterkilled, while 

 the top remained uninjured until it died from the lack 

 of live roots to support it. In many cases when root- 

 grafted trees of the very hardy varieties had sent out 

 roots from the lower part of the cion, they were able 

 to withstand the severest winters uninjured, while trees 

 of the same kinds which were not thus established on 

 their own roots died from winterkilling of the roots. 

 Such experiences have led fruit-growers to demand 

 root-grafted apple trees. 



The methods of spraying now being followed by the 

 more intelligent and progressive apple-growers of mid- 

 continental America do not differ materially from those 

 of the best growers east and west. 



Pruning. Pruning is, generally speaking, sadly 

 neglected by the ordinary apple-grower. In recent 

 years, the tendency of orchard practice in the Missis- 

 sippi Valley has been towards the methods of heading 

 and pruning apple trees which are most commonly 

 practised in the intermountain and Pacific coast dis- 

 tricts. Very high-headed trees are comparatively 

 scarce except in old closely planted orchards in which 

 the lower limbs have been lost by over-crowding. The 

 trees are headed rather low, commonly at about 18 to 

 24 inches from the ground to the first limb. The leader 

 is taken out at a height of 28 to 36 inches, leaving for 

 the framework of the tree from three to five ascend- 

 ing main limbs which should be at least 6 inches apart. 

 In regions where the trees are comparatively short- 

 lived or with varieties that are not expected to live 

 more than from twenty to thirty years, this is doubtless 

 the best practice, but with longer-lived trees it is open 

 to the very serious objection that when loaded with 

 fruit or weighted with ice and snow these large limbs 

 sometimes break at the trunk, leaving an injury which 

 can never be healed, and as a result the whole tree goes 

 down within a few years. On the other hand, trees 

 that are trained with a central leader may lose very 

 large branches and yet heal over such wounds and live 



