Lnter- Cultures in Orchard. 143 
vation, and sometimes more may be made by growing a crop 
among your young trees. Of course, if irrigation is available, 
much more can be done in this direction than if dependent upon 
natural supplies of water. 
There is much difference as to crops in amount of injury 
they may do the trees. Growing alfalfa, without irrigation, has 
been known to kill out an orchard. Grain is less dangerous, 
but still is objectionable, both because of exhaustion of soil and 
moisture, and because of danger to trees from heat deflected from 
straw and stubble. The crops least injurious, because of their 
requirements, and because the constant cultivation of them checks 
the loss of moisture by evaporation, are corn, beans, potatoes, 
beets, carrots, etc., squashes, and other members of the melon 
family, onions, and other shallow-rooting vegetables. In the 
. growth of these, however, there should be a width of four feet of 
well-cultured soil on all sides of the tree, unoccupied. 
In soils exceptionally rich and deep, and where rainfall is 
sabundant, inter-cultures of small fruits or vegetables may be 
carried on for a long series of years with profit both from the 
trees and the inter-culture. In similar deep, rich soils, with irri- 
‘gation, immense crops of small fruits and vegetables, even as 
-high as twelve to twenty-four tons of tomatoes per acre, have 
been taken from between orchard rows, and one hundred and 
fifty sacks of onions per acre from between the rows in a straw- 
berry plantation. In Ventura County some fields of lima beans, 
in favorable years, have paid over $70 per acre—grown between 
young trees. In other parts of the State considerable amounts 
ot peas for sale to canners are grown between the rows in 
young orchards. This crop is especially desirable when good 
sale is assured, because the plant is hardy and can make a good 
part of its growth during the rainy season and the ground be 
cleaned up and well cultivated early in the summer. As beans 
and peas are legumes, their roots enrich the soil, as will be noted 
in the chapter on fertilization. 
How Exhaustion by Inter-Culture May Be Avoided.—But all 
inter-cultures are a loan made by the trees to the orchardist. 
The term may be very long and the rate of interest very small 
in some cases, but sooner or later the trees will need restitution 
to the soil of the plant food removed by inter-cropping. This 
may be accomplished by the use of fertilizers. Still the rule that 
the trees or vines should have all the ground is generally true. 
It is also true that on merely ordinary soils, trusting to rainfall, 
or on shallow soils, trusting in part to irrigation, the trees or 
vines should have the full strength of the land and all the help 
which can be give them in the shape of thorough culti- 
vation. 
