CROPS BETWEEN TREES AND VINES 



145 



I In soils exceptionally rich and deep, and where rainfall is 

 abundant, inter-cultures of small fruits or vegetables may be carried 

 on for a long series of years with profit both from the trees and 

 the inter-culture. In similar deep, rich soils, with irrigation, 

 immense crops of small fruits and vegetables, even as high as 

 twelve to twenty-four tons of tomatoes per acre have been taken 

 from between orchard rows, and one hundred and fifty sacks of 

 onions per acre from between the rows of a strawberry plantation. 

 In Ventura County some fields of lima beans, in favorable years, 

 have paid over $70 per acre grown between young trees. In 

 other parts of the State considerable amounts of peas for sale to 

 canners- are grown between the rows in young orchards. This 

 crop is especially desirable when good sale is assured, because the 

 plant is hardy and can make a good part of its growth during the 

 rainy season and the ground be cleaned up and well cultivated 

 early in the summer. As beans and peas are legumes, their roots 

 enrich the soil, as will be noted in the chapter on fertilization. 



How Exhaustion by Inter-Culture May Be Avoided. But all 



inter-cultures are a loan made by the trees to the orchardist. The 

 term may be very long and the rate of interest very small in 

 some cases, but sooner or later the trees will need restitution to 

 the soil of the plant food removed by inter-cropping. This may 

 be accomplished by the use of fertilizers. Still the rule that the 

 trees or vines should have all the ground is generally true. It 

 is also true that on merely ordinary soils, trusting to rainfall, or 

 on shallow soils, trusting in part to irrigation, the trees or vines 

 should have the full strength of the land and all the help which 

 can be given them in the shape of thorough cultivation. 



METHODS OF CULTIVATION 



In general terms the main objects of cultivation of orchard 

 and vineyard are two : Winter cultivation for moisture reception, 

 and summer cultivation for moisture retention. 



Wherever early winter plowing can be done without too great 

 danger of soil washing, it affords the best available means of 

 admitting water to the great reservoir in the lower levels of a deep 

 soil. Too frequently large volumes of rain water, enriched by air- 

 washing as it falls and by fine soil-particles as it flows, are allowed 

 to run off into the country drainage, with the double loss of fertility 

 and moisture to the fruit grower. Deep penetration of winter rains 

 should be, in all safe ways, promoted. Cultivation for retention 

 has already been strongly urged and is quite generally recognized. 



To serve these main purposes there are two main divisions 

 of practice in this State, each of which has variations of greater 

 or less importance. 



