AZ The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
which should be used by the orchard. Nursery 
stock is known to be particularly hard upon land, 
so much so that nurserymen seldom grow two crops 
of fruit-tree stocks in succession upon the same 
area; but this injury to the land is an impairment 
of physical condition rather than exhaustion of plant- 
food. (See Chapter IV.) 
Sod may sometimes be allowed in an orchard if it 
is closely pastured, but hay should never be cut. Sod 
lands are not only drier than cultivated ground, but 
they are favorite breeding places of insects. Borers 
are particularly bad in grass land. No stone fruits 
should ever be allowed to stand in sod, and the same 
may be said of dwarf pears. Apples and standard 
pears may now and then be seeded with safety, but 
it is certainly true that, in general, fruit decreases in 
proportion as sod inereases. Very thrifty young 
apple and pear orchards may sometimes be thrown 
into bearing hy seeding them down for a time, but 
the sod should be broken up before the trees become 
ehecked in vigor. The whole question as to whether 
sod is hurtful or beneficial to an orchard is a local 
one. The grower must determine it for himself. If 
the orchard is in sod and is not doing well, the best 
advice in general is to plow and till it. Certainly it 
is better to make tillage the rule and sod the excep- 
tion, than to start out with the intention of growing 
an orchard in grass and cultivating it only when 
forced to do so. It is better to pasture an orchard 
than to allow the grass to grow at will, but close 
pasturing can by no means take the place of tillage. 
