208 The Principles of Fruif-r/ rowing. 



crops, as grain and grass, for specific plant -food ele- 

 ments, cannot be applied with any degree of accuracy 

 to fruit crops, particularly the larger fruits, as pears, 

 apples, peaches, grapes, and plums, because these dif- 

 fer from the cereals, grasses, and vegetables, first, in 

 their habits of growth, second, in the character of 

 the produce, and third, in their relation to soil ex- 

 haustion. 



"In the first place, farm crops, as a rule, require 

 but one year for the entire processes of vegetation 

 and maturation. For fruit crops, with but few ex 

 eeptions, the purely vegetative processes continue for 

 at least three years, and with many kinds much 

 longer, while after the fruit -bearing period begins the 

 vegetative processes do not cease, but are coincident 

 with the growth and ripening of the fruit. In the 

 second place, the product of the harvest, namely, the 

 fruit, differs very materially in its character from 

 that of ordinar}- farm crops, which mature their fruit 

 and die in one season, because a whole season is re- 

 quired for its growth and development; that is, it is 

 necessary that there shall be a constant transfer of 

 the nutritive juices from the tree to the fruit 

 throughout the entire growing season, while the 

 growth for each succeeding year of both tree and 

 fruit is dependent upon the nutrition acquired and 

 stored up in buds and branches, as well as upon that 

 which may be derived directly from the soil. In the 

 third place, the relation of fruit-growing to soil ex- 

 haustion is very different from that in general -crop 

 farming, because in orchards there is an annual de 



