CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 85 



THE MODERN CULTIVATION OF COMMERCIAL ORCHARDS. 



The methods of handling commercial orchards have 

 changed greatly within the past few years. The old bugbear 

 of ploughing and tilling orchards has been very largely over- 

 come by the modern implements of tillage and by truer no- 

 tions of the methods of caring for the orchard. All good 

 orchardists now accept the fact that tillage is the fundamental 

 treatment for an orchard, and that sod is the exception. Sod 

 is to be used only in special cases. The philosophy of the Lill- 

 ing of an orchard is to keep the land well and deeply prepared 

 during the first few years, in order to make the roots strike 

 deep, and thereafter to maintain a loose surface in order to 

 save the moisture. If the land has been well cared for in the 

 first four or five years of the orchard, it will rarely be neces- 

 sary to plough deep thereafter. After the trees have grown 

 three to six years, the position of the roots is established, and 

 the land should be in such condition that deep ploughing is 

 not necessary to improve its physical texture. Tillage there- 

 after consists mostly in keeping the surface clean of weeds, and 

 particularly in keeping the upper three or four inches mellow 

 that it may prevent the free access of the air to the moist lay- 

 ers of the soil. This loose surface has been called the " earth- 

 mulch." Of itself it may be dust-dry; yet, it interposes a 

 layer of mulch between the moist earth and the air, and there- 

 by saves very much of the soil moisture. 



On most lands which have been well tilled in the first few 

 years of the orchard, the only necessity for subsequent deep 

 ploughing is to turn under some green-manure crop. Continu- 

 ous clean tillage tends to deprive the soil of its humus of veg- 

 etable mould. This humus may be added in the shape of sta- 

 ble manure, but since most farmers have not sufficient manure, 

 it is the modern idea to recommend that some green crop be 

 grown on the orchard late in the season and ploughed under 

 early the next spring. This supplies the vegetable mould 

 and preserves the physical texture and general comfort of the 

 plant. This allows the clean tillage of the plantation early 

 in the season, and then the growing of rye, crimson clover, 

 peas, or some other crop in late summer and fall. It is impor- 



