180 Fruit-growing in Arid Regions 



various troubles and diseases, the vigor and fruitfulness 

 of the vineyards waned, and the industry began to languish. 

 Hundreds of acres of vines were pulled out and the land 

 immediately and without improvement set to peach trees 

 which, for another long term of years, and under the usual 

 relentless culture without the addition of humus in any 

 form, thrived and produced numerous, heavy crops of 

 fruit. Again, as the remaining store of fertility became 

 further depleted by the searching root systems of adult 

 peach trees, enemies began to appear and make their 

 presence felt. San Jose scale and leaf curl fell upon the 

 island as a scourge and came near writing the final chapter 

 in the history of successful peach culture there. With the 

 destruction of great areas of orchards by the scale and the 

 injury of thousands upon thousands of trees, upon which 

 the scale was not quite successfully combated, it is only 

 natural that great discouragement and depression should 

 overtake the orchardists, so long accustomed to bountiful 

 rewards for labor performed under such favorable con- 

 ditions." 



Has not Professor Green 1 truthfully portrayed what 

 we have a right to expect will happen to the Rocky Moun- 

 tain fruit-growers if our system of orchard management 

 is not changed ? No sane man should hope to continue to 

 take large crops of first-class fruit from an orchard for very 

 many years without doing something to restore the lost 

 fertility. True, we do not expect to have many of the 

 Eastern orchard insects and diseases to contend with, but 

 they are possibilities. We have, however, been faithful in 

 giving clean cultivation, and when one comes to think 

 of it, do not the expressions " merciless cultivation" and 

 "relentless culture" aptly describe this system? 



i Green, W. J., and Ballou, F. H., Ohio Expt. Sta. Bui. 157, p. 118. 



