44 The Fruit-Growers Guide-Book 



deep covering of plowed soil, and to cut the surface roots 

 of the new trees, and make them penetrate into deeper 

 soil where they will be cooler during the hot summer 

 weather and away from the freezing of the winter's cold 

 and into a zone of more regular supply of moisture. 



When it comes to the bearing orchard, no crops are 

 grown to be removed. If any crop is grown it is for the 

 purpose of being turned under and adding to the fertility 

 and humus supply of the soil. It takes an immense amount 

 of soil fertility to provide a bearing orchard with the 

 foliage and wood each year, and it takes a still larger sup- 

 ply to furnish the fruit. Under such conditions it is too 

 much to ask the orchard ground to produce a crop of some 

 other sort when that crop returns nothing to the land. 



The bearing orchard does best when the soil is plowed 

 in the spring as soon as it can be worked, and then 

 kept in cultivation until at least mid-summer, when a crop 

 of some sort is planted to serve as a shade or cover crop. 

 Professors Whipple and Paddock have pointed out to the 

 orchardists of the irrigated sections of the West the impor- 

 tance of growing a shade crop in their orchards, not alone 

 for the improvement it will produce in the physical condi- 

 tion of the soil, but to shade the ground and prevent 

 reflection of the sunlight and scalding the branches. 



W T ith the system of tillage practiced by Western fruit 

 raisers the humus supply of the soil is depleted quickly, 

 and because of this becomes light colored. Running the 

 irrigation ditches close to the trees on hot sunny days in 

 summer has caused the death of many trees by sun-scald- 

 ing, because of the light reflected from the surface of the 

 water in the ditches. The shade crops are planted early in 

 the summer and serve to lessen the reflection from the soil, 

 and from the water in the ditches. 



Stirring the soil by plowing or discing has the effect 

 of stimulating wood growth. If the cultivation is con- 

 tinued too late in the summer there is a possibility of the 

 trees continuing to grow so late that they will go into 

 winter with wood that has not been properly ripened, and 

 may in consequence not be able to stand the cold. With 



