Renovating Old Orchards. 341 
This may demand a heavy trimming up of the trees 
in order to allow a team to work in it; and in 
many of the forest-like old orchards it may be 
economy to eut out a third or half the trees at 
the start. Perhaps the roots are so high that the 
land cannot be plowed. In such ease, the land may 
often be broken up “in the spring, before the earth 
becomes hard, by means of spading-harrows, dise 
harrows, spring-tooth harrows, and similar vigorous 
tools. Or corn and other grain may be dropped 
freely in holes made with a crow-bar, and the hogs 
then turned in. Let them root for it! 
The earth-muleh once secured to save the mois- 
ture, it may next be necessary to apply plant-food, 
either in the form of stable manures, green crops 
or coucentrated fertilizers, or in all these forms to- 
gether. 
It is probable that the trees will need heavy 
pruning. But this pruning is for the purpose of 
correcting the results of years of neglect, not for 
the purpose, directly, of making the trees bear. In 
fact, the effect of heavy pruning is apt to be in 
the very opposite direction from fruit-bearing; but it 
must be done in most old orchards to bring the trees 
back into manageable shape, to produce new and 
fresh wood for fruit-bearing, and to thin the top 
sufficiently to allow the fruit to develop to something 
like perfection of size and quality. Weak trees may 
sometimes be re-invigorated by this heavy pruning 
alone. Severe heading-in of old peach trees often 
accomplishes this. When the new wood is_ once 
