CHAPTER VI 



Soil, Fertilizers, Situations, Cover Crops 



Manures and Fertilizers Situation for Fruit Plantations 

 Averting Danger of Frost Damage Green Manures 



FOR the home fruit plantation perhaps the great majority of 

 people have only Hobson's choice as to soil they must be 



content with what they have. There's no use wishing for the 

 ideal well-drained, mellow, deep, fertile loam because even where 

 there is a chance to choose, such a combination of conditions is about 

 as common as hen's teeth. What can and should be done is to work 

 towards the ideal by rational management of the soil, beginning with 

 what good conditions are already present and making improvements 

 from year to year. 



In many cases the planter will be forced to start with a true soil 

 strewn with builders' rubbish mortar, concrete, bricks, stone, shav- 

 ings, pieces of wood and other junk buried under several inches of 

 "subsoil" from the cellar excavation. This is about as discouraging a 

 combination of untoward conditions as could be planned. Several 

 years may be necessary to make such "dirt" acceptable to Strawberries. 

 For bush and tree fruits about the quickest thing to do in such cases 

 where the whole area cannot be worked over, is to dig holes deep enough 

 to reach below any "hard pan" or impervious layer as suggested below. 



Where such unfavorable conditions do not exist soils may gen- 

 erally be greatly improved by deep stirring, not by bringing the sub- 

 soil to the surface but by using a subsoiler (sometimes called a subsoil 

 plow) which merely breaks the hard ground below the lowest point 

 which can be reached by the true plow. When neither plow nor sub- 

 soiler can be used the spade is the next best tool. To get best results 

 with this the area should be trenched as follows: 



Dig a strip, say afoot wide across one end of the area to be planted, 

 and wheel this earth to the farther end. Next spread old manure, 

 bone meal or other general fertilizer in the bottom of the trench, dig 

 this earth, break it up and mix the manure with it to the full depth of 

 the spade blade, thus making the bottom of the dug layer two "spits" 

 or spade blades deep. Now start on the second strip across the area, 

 throwing the earth upon the top of the loosened and enriched subsoil. 

 Next add manure and dig the lower stratum just laid bare. And so on 

 till the whole area is dug and trenched. Finally fill in the last trench 

 with the soil wheeled from the first one. 



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