"254 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



the selection of location for the orchard or garden and of varieties, 

 and thorough cultivation of the soil and attention to the wants of 

 the trees, and without these failure is assured as certainly as it 

 would be if a crop of corn was badly put in and then left with- 

 out further care. There is no mystery about fruit-growing, and 

 no valid reason why every farmer should not succeed at least 

 with some varieties, while many who are favorably located as to 

 soil, markets, etc., could embark in the business of growing fruit 

 for market with a certainty of profit. 



Selection of Orchard Site. Wherever it is possible, 

 the orchard should be located on rolling land having good sur- 

 face drainage. Even hillsides that are too steep for profitable 

 cultivation will make good orchard lands, and clay land is pref- 

 erable to that which is rich in vegetable matter. 



Our best grain lands, black loam or alluvial, are not to be 

 chosen for orchards, as they tend to produce too great a growth 

 of wood, and to keep it growing late in the fall, so that the new 

 growth is not well matured, and the buds consequently not well 

 developed. Such lands usually lie low, and are more subject to 

 frost in early spring than the higher rolling lands. 



The farmer can not always have a good location for an 

 orchard, but he should understand what is likely to prove 

 successful, and not attempt to engage in fruit growing as a 

 business on a farm well suited to grain, and on which fruit 

 growing is almost certain to prove unprofitable. Fruit trees 

 will not be thrifty and will be likely to winter-kill on lands 

 that are saturated with water in winter and spring, and on such 

 land drainage must be provided. 



I have seen such good results from a very simple and inex- 

 pensive method of surface drainage that I am prepared to re- 

 commend it. My attention was first called to this plan in 1860, 

 in the flat lands of Allen County, Indiana. My father was 

 buying and shipping apples from that part of the State, and he 

 found some orchards that were wonderfully prolific, and with 

 fruit of the highest excellence on flat wet lands, that were so 

 flooded with w r ater as to endanger the life of trees planted in 

 the usual manner. In these orchards the ground was plowed in 



