FRUIT-GROWING 



FRUIT-GROWING 



1293 



widespread demand for a package that can be given 

 away with the fruit. This demand for the small and 

 individual package may be expected to increase with 

 all the better kinds of fruits or with those that appeal 

 to the personal customer. This is true in all lines of 

 trade. Not so long ago, boots and shoes were distributed 

 in large board cases, but now each pair is sold in a neat 

 cardboard box. We are still conservative in respect 

 to the handhng of apples in barrels. In the general 

 trade and for the staple varieties of apples, the barrel 

 may continue to be the best package, but for the per- 

 sonal customer and particularly with all the finer or 

 dessert varieties, a small package must come into use. 

 In most parts of the world, except in the central and 

 eastern part of the United States, apples are not 

 handled in barrels. The fact that the grower must 

 give attention to his package as well as to the growing 

 of his crop, forces him to adopt a new point of view 

 in his fruit-growing and to visualize his market or 

 even his customer. 



(3) Modern commercial orcharding has developed 

 the tillage ideal. Under the old regime, the tree was 

 able to take care of itself and to bear a product good 

 enough to meet the uncritical demands. Nowadays, 

 however, the tree must receive the very best of care, 

 for annual crops of great quantity and of the best 

 quality are desired. Therefore, the plant must be sup- 

 plied with abundance of plant-food and moisture. 

 Time was when it was thought that the mere apph- 

 cation of chemical plant-food to the soil would be 

 sufficient to make a plant productive. It is now under- 

 stood, however, that plant-food is only one of the 

 requisites of good growth. The soil must be deep and 

 loose and fine, so that it will hold moisture ancl pro- 

 mote all those chemical and biological activities that 

 make the land to be productive. In former times the 

 best attention in tillage was given to the annual crops. 

 The orchard was usually in neglect. This was because 

 the fruit plantation had small commercial importance. 

 Now that the fruit plantation has risen to first impor- 



tance, in man}' cases, it must be given as good care as 

 any farm crop. In recent years there has been great 

 development of special tools and implements for the 

 tillage of orchard lands. Greater attention is given to 

 the original preparation of the land, so that planters 

 no longer ask how large the hole must be to receive a 

 tree, but accept Warder's advice that the hole should 

 be as large as the orchard. The philosophy of orchard 

 tillage, as understootl by the best teachers and for 

 most parts of the country, is (a) to prepare the land 

 thoroughly at the outset, (b) to give frequent hght 

 surface tillage in the early part of the season or until 

 the crop is nearly or quite grown, and then (c) to 

 cover the land with some crop that will remain on the 

 ground over winter and be plowed under in spring. If 

 the land has been well prepared, it is not necessarj' to 

 plow it deep after the first two or three years, unless 

 one is turning under a heavy cover-crop. The surface 

 tilth may be secured by breaking the top-soil early in 

 spring with a cutaway harrow, gang-plow or other 

 surface-working tools. This may not be possible, how- 

 ever, on very heavy lands. The cover-crop adds 

 humus and protects the land from puddhng and bak- 

 ing in the winter. If it is a leguminous crop it also 

 adds a store of available nitrogen. It is possible, per- 

 haps, to use cover-crops so freely that the land be- 

 comes too full of vegetable matter, but all such dangers 

 are easily avoidable. Usually the cover-crop is plowed 

 under in spring at the very earliest opportunity in 

 order to save the soil moisture. It is by no means the 

 universal practice to use cover-crops on fruit lands, but 

 the practice is now accepted, and the grower may 

 adopt it or not as his judgment dictates. 



To facilitate the economical and efficient tillage of 

 fruit lands, it is coming to be the practice to devote 

 the land wholly to the fruits. The fertiUty of the land 

 is not permanently divided between trees and hay, or 

 trees and other crops. With plums and pears and some 

 other orchard fruits, it is often allowable to use the 

 intermediate land for the first two or three years 

 for annual crops, but these crops should grad- 

 ually diminish and every caution should be 

 taken that they do not interfere with the care 

 of the trees. Apple orchards, when the spaces 

 are 40 feet apart, may be cropped for six or 

 eight years without injury, providing good tillage 

 and other efficient treatment are given. One 







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1592. Peach-growing on a large scale in Georgia ; also a scene at a shipping-station in the North, showing fruit in small gift packages. 



