No. 4.] THE NEW ORCHARD. 45 



difficult to grow good crops, and it was badly run out when 

 we began, which undoubtedly complicates matters. At the 

 present time the following are our most promising crops: 

 buckAvheat, barley, dwarf Essex rape, turnips, soy beans and 

 rye. The great advantage of buckwheat is that it will grow 

 almost anywhere and that it leaves the soil in fine condition. 

 Also that it tends to reseed itself from year to year, so that 

 one saves on the bill for seed. This is a very important 

 point, and I believe that by changing our methods a little 

 we can get cover crops that will almost always reseed them- 

 selves. The change in methods would be principally in the 

 direction of shortening the season of cultivation, so that not 

 all of the seed will have sprouted before it comes time to 

 " lay by " the orchard. Another practice we have found 

 helpful in getting a good growth of cover crop is to apply a 

 little fertilizer when the cover crop is sov^ai. In fact, we 

 are even contemplating changing the time for applying our 

 orchard fertilizers from early spring to the date at which 

 the cover crop is sown, for of course in the long run the trees 

 get the plant food which is taken up temporarily by the 

 cover crop. 



A point in favor of turnips and dwarf Essex rape is the 

 low cost of seed. Two pounds will sow an acre, and the 

 former costs about 35 cents a pound, while the latter can be 

 had for about 8 cents. Where one is sowing a large acreage 

 this low cost of seed looks very attractive. A further ad- 

 vantage of turnips is that under anything like favorable cir- 

 cumstances a good many of them will grow large enough to 

 be marketable. One can then go through the patch and pull 

 out enough to more than pay for the cost of the crop, and 

 still have a good stand to act as a cover. 



It might be of interest to say just a word about some of 

 the orchard implements that we are using, because in the 

 handling of an orchard our success depends to a great extent 

 on what sort of tools we have to work with. While we have 

 a great many different implements, the three which we use 

 most are the " light-draft orchard harrow," the " California 

 orchard plow " and the " orchard cultivator." The first men- 

 tioned is a light form of spring-tooth harrow, mounted on 



