The Cultivation of the Fruit-Farm 149 



vated soil will grow finer apples, by our standards. 

 The cherry tree in sod tends to black bark and 

 decaying limbs; the tree in cultivated soil tends to 

 reddish bark, and tough, vigorous limbs. Each 

 will fruit, but the larger, finer fruit will be foimd on 

 the cultivated land. 



Orchard soil is made like vineyard soil or garden 

 soil. Cover-crops, or stable manure, for nitrogen; 

 potash for fruit: phosphoric acid for both; a soil 

 as loose as ashes, and full of humus; these in your 

 soil your orchard will grow healthy stock and fine, 

 abundant fruit. And in winter, it is well if in yoiu* 

 orchard the snow lies deep, and beneath the snow a 

 thick matting of clover, vetch, grass, or chickweed. 

 The time for cultivating the orchard is during the 

 period of vigorous yearly growth, from opening 

 spring when, as we say, the sap starts, till the 

 fruit is ready to pick. Winter trimming, spring 

 and early summer cultivation, winter covering, — 

 and the cycle is completed. This is the orchard 

 calendar. The more vigorous the growth of the 

 tree, as the peach, the more cultivation and 

 feeding are required. Not that any fruit-tree can 

 live without food and care, but peach trees are 

 rapid growers and heavy feeders, especially in their 

 youth, — and wise management will keep them 

 young. In the Lake Shore Valley they are always 

 rapid growers and heavy feeders; in less degree are 

 cherries, prunes, and apples, in the order named. 

 Many fruit-growers plant the young orchard 

 and then treat it like trees in the wild, — now and 



