182 Fruit-growing in Arid Regions 



turning plow in the spring, each year or often enough to 

 prevent the ground from becoming hard. Follow the plow 

 with a harrow or disc if lumpy, and this with the smooth- 

 ing harrow. Some use a float instead of the harrow. The 

 subsequent tillage or cultivation consists in going over the 

 ground often enough to prevent a crust from forming and 

 to keep the weeds down. This necessitates tilling after each 

 irrigation and after rains. The Planet Jr. cultivator and 

 the smoothing harrow are used for this purpose. Tillage 

 is continued until the branches are bent down by the fruit, 

 which will average about the first of August. 



Winter tillage is practiced when the condition of the 

 ground will permit. Two tillings in the winter is con- 

 sidered to be about correct. The Planet Jr. cultivator or 

 a disk harrow is used for this purpose. 



Turning now to the classification of the benefits of til- 

 lage as given on page 181, it would seem at first thought 

 that the system followed by our best orchardists meets all 

 requirements. We find first that tillage improves the 

 physical condition of the land. By the physical condition 

 is meant its tilth and general make up, whether it is com- 

 pact and hard, or whether it is loose and loamy. But any 

 one who has traveled among the orchards knows that in 

 the majority of cases the soil is far from being loose and 

 loamy. On the contrary, it soon is compact, lacks fiber, 

 and it becomes puddled after irrigation or rains. We 

 have even seen orchard soils so hard two inches below 

 the surface that an opening could be made into them only 

 with the aid of a pick. And yet thorough cultivation 

 had been given the land for years. Evidently something 

 is wrong, so we follow on down the classification and find 



