HOW TO PLOW AN ORCHARD. 25 



ing an attractive home to insects and mice. There is no 

 danger of injuring trees by plowing away from them and 

 close to them, if one has trained his trees properly and if 

 he exercises care. If the practice of close plowing be in- 

 augurated in young orchards, the roots will start deep 

 enough to avoid the plow. It is not necessary to plow 

 deep. Trees should be pruned high. Low-headed 

 trees are an abomination, and they present hardly any 

 advantage over high tops. With moderately high-topped 

 trees, short whiffletrees, low hames, a strap back-pad 

 with leather turrets, a gentle team and a careful man, 

 one need not fear about injuring trees. Plow one year 

 east and west, the next north and south ; one year to the 

 trees, one year from them. 



ORCHARD TILLAGE. 



In the latitude of Boston and Chicago, cultivation in 

 the orchard should cease before September. It is, per- 

 haps, a good rule to stop the plow and the hoe a month 

 before frost is expected. Late cultivation is always haz- 

 ardous, and especially so in the case of young trees or of 

 tender varieties. There is much room for an honest 

 difference of opinion as to the condition in which the 

 orchiiid should be left after a crop is removed. A 

 liighly successful friend maintains that the orchard 

 should be left in weeds because they hold the snow. 

 I should much prefer a perfectly clean surface to 

 a weedy one. I doubt if snow is so valuable a cover- 

 ing about apple trees as some suppose. I even have 

 my doubts as to its value in peach orchards. At the 

 best, it is a transient covering and it comes and goes 



