Rotation Suggestions 129 



would be adapted to the varying early stages of orchards, 

 and would correspond with normal strawberry rotations 

 and even with the best practice in raspberry-culture. One 

 to four three-year courses could be run in orchards before 

 the trees are large enough to interfere, depending on the 

 land, the kind of fruit and the distance apart. A three- 

 year course for young orchards should preferably have two 

 tilled crops and one legume or sod crop: as (1) potatoes, 

 roots or truck-crops, (2) corn, (3) crimson clover or vetch 

 in fall or spring; or, again, as (1) corn, (2) cotton, (3) cow- 

 pea or velvet bean. Sometimes it may be allowable to run 

 only one tilled crop, in which case the potatoes-wheat-red 

 clover may be useful. Care must be taken to see that first 

 attention is given the trees, and this should call for manure 

 or fertilizers with one or more of the courses. 



STABLE MANURES 



The kinds of fertilizing applications are of two types, 

 stable manures and concentrated or commercial plant- 

 foods. The stable manures exercise a most important 

 effect on the physical character of the land, and, in fact, 

 this is often their greatest value. In this respect, stable 

 manures may answer much the same purpose as green- 

 or cover -crops, particularly if they are applied in fall 

 or early winter. When manure is not sufficient to cover 

 the entire plantation, it should be applied to the hardest 

 and driest spots only, these spots being observed and 

 noted the previous season. Lands so hard or dry that 

 even rye will not catch may be got under way for the 

 cover-crops by liberal applications of barn manures. Rota- 

 tion in the use of fertilizers may be found to be as useful 

 as in the case of cover-crops. A soil that has had a liberal 

 i 



