104 The Principles of Fruit-growing 



condition rather than mere exhaustion of plant-food. (See 

 Chapter IV.) 



Young orchards may sometimes be summer-fallowed 

 with the very best results if the land is hard and intrac- 

 table. This fallowing is clean cultivation. This is often 

 the quickest and cheapest way of bringing such lands into 

 fit condition for the growing of the fruit, and the longer 

 the process is delayed after the plants are set, the more 

 difficult and the less efficient the labor will be. This sum- 

 mer-fallow should be begun very early in the season and 

 continued until midsummer, at which time some cover- 

 crop may be sown. It is a way of correcting or overcoming 

 the lack of good preparation of the land in the beginning, 

 or the results of subsequent neglect. 



Orchard crops. 



It is best to grow only annual crops in the orchard. 

 Garden-truck is usually good, because it receives good 

 tillage and fertilizing, and usually does not shade the 

 fruit plants. If the farm carries live-stock, which of course 

 must be fed, the range of crops that can be grown with 

 profit is extended. Rowed and tilled peas, beans, roots, 

 cabbage, tomatoes, and the like (Fig. 22), may be useful. 

 Potatoes are good as a crop, but the digging may come at 

 a time when it will interfere with cover-cropping or when 

 it may constitute a too late tillage. 



In all corn-growing regions, Indian com is probably 

 the most frequent crop in the young orchards, and it 

 appears to give good results if sufficient space is left 

 about the trees. Thomber makes the following sum- 

 mary on the use of com in irrigated orchard lands (Lewis- 

 ton Orchards Life, June, 1914): "The high price of 

 choice fruit-land under irrigation in the Pacific North- 



