CHAPTER XVI 

 ORCHARD FRUITS AND BERRIES 



IT is not until within recent years that the question of 

 manuring or fertilizing fruit trees and berries has come to 

 be of particular interest. This is due primarily to the 

 fact that demands for fruit and berries have been relatively 

 limited as compared with the staple crops. Hence, fruit- 

 growing as a business, or on a commercial scale, is compara- 

 tively new, though the opinion is quite prevalent among 

 fruit-growers that trees, particularly, are indigenous to 

 most soils, and grow freely like weeds, and that therefore 

 orchard crops are not as exhaustive of the fertility elements 

 as others. They cite, as an argument on this point, the 

 fact that lands from which timber has been recently 

 removed are much more productive than those upon which 

 many regular farm crops have been grown. Scientific 

 investigation and practical experience, however, teach that 

 forest growth and fruit growth are quite different in respect 

 to the needs of fertilizing elements, and that progressive 

 fruit-culture demands that quite as much attention shall 

 be given to the matter of providing proper plant-food as is 

 now known to be desirable for the other and more common 

 crops of the farm grown for profit. 



FRUIT CROPS DIFFER FROM GENERAL FARM CROPS 



It is obvious that suggestions as to the character of the 

 fertilizing of the cereal crops, grasses and vegetables, 

 must be somewhat different from these fruits, because the 



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