22 



BULLETIN 500, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the first part of the season and they are allowed to grow after the first 

 or second irrigation. 



As has been explained, it was impossible to separate the figures for 

 the different kinds of soil management and have enough records of 

 any one kind to give the figures conclusive meaning, so that all work 

 is averaged over the total number of records. 



As yet comparatively little income has been derived from hay 

 taken from these orchards. The mulch crops have been so recently 

 established that most growers still leave the crop on the ground 

 after mowing. However, since the recent decline in the price of 

 apples, growers are coming more and more to realize the necessity 



Fig. 5.— A 7-year-old orchard in the Grand Valley under the intensive clean cultural system of soil man- 

 agement. Note how close the trees are set in the row. 



of getting something more than apples from their land. Thus, in 

 the year 1915 many men mowed their orchards and saved the hay 

 for feed. The few men who cut orchard hay harvested 1£ to 5 tons 

 per acre of alfalfa. Clover, less frequently taken off, averages much 

 less per acre. The cost of harvesting this hay is about $2.50 per ton, 

 and the local price $4 to $8, so that there is often a considerable hay 

 credit to an orchard. In these figures, however, owing to the mulch- 

 crop system not having been firmly established at the time the records 

 were taken, no consideration is given to hay in the cost tables. In 

 general, however, it maybe said that a system of mulch or cover crops 

 cropping is becoming very popular in western Colorado and intensive 

 clean cultivation in the bearing orchards has but few advocates (see 

 figs. 6 and 7). 



