294 SOILS AND PLANT LIFE 



growth by protecting them against disease (Section 99) 

 and insects. 



But how is he to check their growth? 



The fruit grower in the irrigated country will tell you 

 that it can be done by withholding nearly all water from 

 the trees during the latter part of the growing season. 



The man who cultivates his orchard will tell you that 

 you can check the growth by stopping the cultivation early 

 in July and sowing oats, rape, buckwheat, vetch or some 

 other crop which will take the moisture and plant food 

 from the soil. 



The man who once had a very healthy orchard in the 

 central part of the United States, but all growing perhaps 

 to heavy wood and bearing no fruit, will tell you that he 

 pruned his trees in June and that the next year he had a 

 full crop. 



Your grandfather would probably have told you to 

 drive into the body of the tree rusty nails or small bolts. 



The man who prunes and cultivates, who checks his 

 irrigation stream, or who sows a crop in his orchard at 

 midsummer is thinking about securing a crop of fruit, and 

 at the same time about keeping his trees in healthy con- 

 dition. Grandfather's method produced fruit, but in 

 many cases it shortened the life of the tree. A tree that 

 is injured by rabbits or mice, by storms or by careless 

 treatment is very likely to bear fruit the next year, — and 

 the next year it is apt to die. 



By careful soil management, by proper pruning, by 

 intelligent irrigation, by timely spraying, and by thinning 

 the fruit, we can aid the fruit buds to form and at the same 

 time maintain healthy, long-lived trees. 



226. Age of Wood upon which Fruit Buds appear. — 

 One of the most interesting ways to fix in mind the dif- 



