Fertilizing the Home Fruit Garden— By s. w. Fletcher 



ECONOMICAL WAYS OF ENRICHING THE LAND— WHEN TO FEED AND WHAT TO 

 GIVE-WHY YOUR ORCHARD IS UNFRUITFUL, AND CLEAR-CUT GUIDES TO THE 

 PROPER USE OF BARNYARD MANURE, CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS AND COVER CROPS 



Photographs by the Author 



Michigan 

 Agricultural College 



WE should disillusionize ourselves of 

 the popular notion that fruit trees 

 are less exhaustive to the soil than other 

 crops, as the grains, grasses, and vegetables. 

 For many years the trees occupy the same 

 site, making a unremitting drain upon the 

 soil of the same kinds of plant food and in 

 about the same proportions. 



Fertilizers are expensive. The first con- 

 sideration of the fruit gardener should be to 

 utilize home sources of fertility as much as 

 possible. The soil itself is the nearest and 

 largest source of fertility. It is a common 

 saying among farmers' institute speakers 

 that good tillage may be equivalent to fertiliz- 

 ing. Many soils that are considered poor 

 and produce indifferent crops are found to be 

 really quite rich when subjected to analysis; 

 the trouble is, much of the plant food in them 



Buying fertility in sacKs. Be sure you Know what 

 your soil needs and what the fertilizer contains. 

 Look at the analysis tag on the bag, and maKe a 

 fertilizer test on your soil 



is "locked up," "unavailable," "unpalatable." 

 Every time a tillage tool is run through the soil 

 it helps to make available this unavailable plant 

 food. Tillage lets in the air, the sunshine, and 

 promotes the activity of many other agencies 

 that change this unpalatable food into palat- 

 able form, so that plants can feed upon it. 

 The man who keeps his orchard permanently 

 in sod must expect to be obliged to fertilize 

 it more often and more liberally than if it 

 were stirred with cultivator teeth. It must 

 not be understood, however, that even the 

 best of tillage will entirely replace fertilizing, 

 but the amount of fertilizer that it is necessary 

 to apply to the fruit garden for best results 

 may be quite materially reduced by excellent 

 tillage. The comparative advantages of 

 tillage and sod for fruit trees were pointed 

 out in The Garden Magazine for June. 



We hear much in these days about "cover 

 crops," and "green manures." These new 



terms stand for an old idea and an ancient 

 practice — the enrichment of a soil by growing 

 plants in it and returning them to it. This 

 is Nature's method of keeping up the fertility 

 of the soil. 



The home fruit garden, however small, 

 profits by this practice as much as the field 

 or the commercial orchard. 



Usually it is wise to cease the tillage of 

 fruit trees from the last of July to the middle 

 of August, depending upon the season, the 

 soil, and the crops, so that wood and buds 

 may mature before winter. Thus the ground 

 is idle for eight or nine months during the 

 year. This opportunity is eagerly seized 

 upon by a host of ambitious weeds, which 

 have been quietly lying in wait for this time. 

 Weeds enrich the soil when plowed under 

 just like other plants, but only a shiftless 

 man grows weeds to turn under. 



During this idle period, which lasts in the 

 latitude of New York from about the first of 

 August until the first of April, the soil is 

 losing fertility and losing it rapidly, up to the 

 time when the ground freezes. Plant food — 

 especially nitrogen — is being leached out and 

 washed away, or carried down into the soil 

 beyond the roots of ordinary plants. Winter 

 brings sudden thaws and freezes that heave 

 the ground and expose it to erosion. If the 

 land is sloping, this loss may far exceed the 

 value of all the fertilizer that has been applied 

 to the orchard. If, after tillage has ceased, a 

 crop is sown that will occupy the ground 

 from late summer to early spring, these 

 several advantages are gained, wholly aside 

 from the fertilizing value of the crop when 

 plowed, under: 



The weeds are kept from getting a foothold, 

 so that the land is cleaner the next year. 



The leaching plant food is saved, being 

 used by the cover crop in its growth, and 

 turned back into the soil the following spring. 



The ground is protected from heaving. 



The soil is held by the roots and by the 

 tops of the cover crop so that it does not wash 

 as badly. 



A cover crop blankets the tree roots, and 

 may save them from winter injury. 



These benefits alone are sufficient to 

 justify the use of a cover crop in the home 

 orchard in many cases, even without its 

 additional value as fertilizing material. 



HOW TO GROW FERTILITY 



The first point to decide in choosing a 

 cover crop is whether the orchard soil needs 

 more nitrogen. If it does, a leguminous 

 cover crop should be selected. If it does 

 not, grow a non-leguminous cover crop. 

 Leguminous plants that are commonly used 

 for green manuring are Canada field peas, 

 vetch, crimson clover, horse bean, cow pea, 

 68 



velvet bean, alfalfa. The especial value of 

 leguminous plants for green manuring lies 

 in their ability, peculiar to leguminous plants 

 alone, to gather nitrogen from the air. Hence 

 when a leguminous crop is plowed under, it 

 enriches the soil not only with the plant food 

 that it has drawn from the soil, but also with 

 the nitrogen that it has drawn from the air. 

 Nitrogen is the most expensive of plant 

 foods ; it costs three times as much as potash 

 or phosphoric acid when bought in fertilizer 

 bags. Therefore, if nitrogen is needed, this 

 is by all odds the cheapest and simplest way 

 of getting it. 



If the orchard soil does not need nitrogen 

 but does need more humus to hold moisture 

 and improve its texture, and needs a crop to 

 catch wasting fertility and to prevent washing, 

 then a non-leguminous crop should be used. 

 Rye, oats, rape, buckwheat, barley, and 

 wheat are commonly used for this purpose. 

 When the orchard soil is so hard and lumpy 

 that a good stand of clover cannot be secured, 

 rye or oats may be used to advantage for a 

 few years, or until the soil has been brought 

 into better heart. 



GREEN MANURE MUST NOT GET WOODY 



It is a common mistake to let the green 

 manuring crop get large before plowing it 

 under. The cover crop need be but a few 

 inches high in order to accomplish all the 

 good results during late fall, winter, and 

 early spring that we expect from it. The 

 green manuring crop, in the orchard at least, 

 always should be plowed under as soon as 

 the soil is dry enough to work up mellow. 

 Furthermore, herbage decays in the soil 

 much quicker when it is young and succulent. 

 In early spring the soil is more moist than it 

 is in late sprng, and herbage decays in it 

 more quickly. For green manuring in the 

 orchard, a few inches of herbage is better 



These peach trees need a stimulant. An un- 

 thrifty sod orchard is usually benefited most by a 

 top-dressing of manure. The nitrogen in it stimulates 

 the growth and the humus mulches the soil 



