The Canadian Horticulturist. 89 



MANURING APPLE ORCHARDS. 



ORTICULTURISTS and farmers are finding out that it pays them to 

 use an occasional application of bone and potash manures in the 

 orchard. When the apple trees get into full bearing, manure may be 

 applied pretty freely without much danger of making wood growth 

 rather than fruit. The paler green of the leaves in bearing apple 

 trees, as compared with those not bearing, shows the tax on vitality 

 which fruit productions cause. It shows probably in the case of most 

 old trees the inability of the roots to supply food for the present crop, and any- 

 thing besides that prevents the formation of fruit buds for a crop another year. 

 In other words, if the soil were made rich enough a partial or full crop of fruit 

 might, accidents accepted, be looked for every year. Some apples trees do 

 bear every year but they are chiefly of the summer varieties, that mature early 

 enough to allow time for the production of fruit buds afterwards. 



In some localities there are off years for apple bearing, and the trees are 

 generally fruitless. The fall and early spring is the best time to manure these 

 non-bearing apple orchards. A dressing of manure, spread on the surface in the 

 fall or early spring, will work its way through the soil by rains and melting snows 

 the coming winter and spring. Nothing will or can be lost, for apple tree roots 

 go down so deeply that leaching beyond their reach is hardly possible. It is not 

 merely or chiefly under the trees that manure should be spread. Apple roots 

 extend very widely. Years ago in digging an underdrain through a rich spot were 

 found roots that grew fully four rods away. Whether the roots extended as 

 widely in every direction we do not know. Probably if not interfered with by 

 other trees they did. 



Stable manure is a complete fertilizer for crops that grow mainly to leaf and 

 stalk, but it is not a full manure for grain, and still less so for fruit trees. In 

 naturally fertile clay soils the carbonic acid gas, caused by decaying manure in 

 the soil, will make soluble some portions of inert potash which all clays contain. 

 But even here potash salts or hardwood ashes will be useful, while on sandy or 

 gravelly soils the addition of potash is always indispensable. Without the pot- 

 ash the trees will grow most luxuriantly but without fruiting. The potash is most 

 necessary for the fruit at the time the seeds are being produced and the fruit is 

 ripening. Without potash, the change from the sour and acrid juices of the 

 green fruit to the ripe, melting sweetness of the same fruit when ripening 

 would be impossible. Overloaded grape vines often suffer from lack of available 

 potash, when the grapes hang for days and weeks, without change, upon the vines. 

 It should be remembered that years ago, when the soil was rich and insect 

 enemies were unknown, apples were the most easily cultivated of all fruits, and 

 the surest to produce a crop. They ought to be and may be made so again. With 



