VI 



ORCHARD CULTIVATION 



There was a time, within the memory of even young 

 men, when the advisabihty of cultivating orchards was 

 held to be a debatable question. The development 

 of the modern commercial orchard, however, has set 

 the argument at rest. The man who is growing fruit 

 on a large scale for the money there is in it cannot 

 carry on the business without cultivation. Where the 

 orchard is a mere incident in a system of mixed farm- 

 ing it may often be most convenient and satisfactory 

 to have it in grass, or to depend on pigs or poultry 

 for the cultivation of the soil ; but this is not really 

 fruit growing, and is not to be regarded as an excep- 

 tion. It may still be possible under very unusual 

 conditions that certain orchards will thrive as well 

 without cultivation as with it. The cases are still 

 more frequent in which small tracts of land may be 

 wisely planted to apple trees, though the ground is too 

 rough and stony to admit of cultivation. It is cer- 

 tain, however, that, as a business proposition, the man 

 who would select such a tract for a commercial apple 

 orchard would deliberately place himself at a serious 

 disadvantage in his competition with the men who 

 plant their orchards on good tillable soil, and who 

 follow the best practices of modern tillage in the man- 

 agement of their trees. 



In recent years there has been a good deal of dis- 

 cussion of the "Hitchings method," advocated by a 

 few eminent horticulturists, especially by Mr. Grant 



48 



