278 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1906 



tillage. For example, fruit gardens in those 

 parts of Eastern Washington that have a 

 rainfall of twelve to fifteen inches and are 

 without irrigation, must obviously be tilled 

 much more often than fruit gardens just 

 across the Cascade Mountains on the Puget 

 Sound, where there is a rainfall of forty to 

 sixty inches. 



THE DIFFERENCES OF SOILS 



Soils vary greatly in their moisture-holding 

 power; even in the same locality, and per- 

 haps on the same farm, there may be soils 

 that differ very markedly in this respect. 

 Light and loose soils deficient in humus, stiff 

 clay soils, and shallow soils dry out quicker, 

 and hence need to be cultivated more fre- 

 quently than deep, mellow, humus-laden 

 soils. Especially in those parts of the 

 Northern states that were glaciated, there 

 is likely to be little uniformity in soils, and 

 hence no uniformity of tillage is possible. 



YOUNG TREES NEED MOST TILLAGE 



The younger the trees, the more often 

 should they be tilled; they have especial 

 need of a vigorous growth when young and 

 are more affected by lack of water than 

 older trees. Obviously, trees loaded with 

 fruit should be tilled more often and later in 

 the season than barren trees; the fruit is 

 mostly water. The dryer the season, the 

 greater the necessity for tillage. I have seen 

 a thrifty and profitable unirrigated home 

 orchard in a region which had but eight 

 inches of rainfall — it was tilled until the 

 surface soil was like road dust. 



No good gardener tills his fruit trees the 

 same number of times each season. The 

 infallible guides are the dryness of the soil 

 and the growth of the trees. The only 

 general statement worth making is that 

 most home orchards in the humid sections 

 of the country should be tilled from five to 

 ten times during the season. Wherever a 

 crust is formed on the surface, especially 

 after a beating rain, it is a sign that water is 

 escaping and tillage is necessary to break it 

 up and restore the mulch. 



RIPENING THE WOOD 



Some fruit trees are ruined by being tilled 

 too late in the season. A tree under natural 

 conditions, in sod, makes most of its growth 

 during spring and early summer, when the 

 soil is moist, and grows more slowly as 

 the dryness of summer increases. It goes 

 into the winter with well-matured wood. 



Late tillage prolongs growth and may 

 carry the tree into the winter with green wood 

 and undeveloped buds, which are likely to 

 winter kill. After a particularly trying 

 winter it is a common observation that the 

 late-growing orchards are usually the most 

 injured. Not as many fruit trees are injured 

 by being tilled too late as by being tilled too 

 little, but unquestionably many are ruined 

 by injudicious tillage. Therein is the great 

 advantage of using a cover-crop. The 

 cover-crop system is the most important 

 development in orchard practice, next to 

 spraying, during the past twenty-five years. 



When to stop tillage depends upon all the 



factors already mentioned, especially upon 

 whether the trees are laden with fruit, which 

 must have water in order to swell to a large 

 size. In the Northern states the date of the 

 last tillage, as usually recommended, is from 

 the middle of July to the middle of August; 

 in the Southern states proportionately earlier. 

 In most regions, over 90 per cent, of the 

 growth of fruit trees is made by the first of 

 July, and the chief reason for any subse- 

 quent tillage would be to "carry out" a crop. 

 In some seasons it would be much better if 

 orchards on deep, moisture-holding soils 

 were not tilled at all after the spring plowing. 

 Let the season, the soil, the crop, and the 

 growth of the trees decide this. We have 

 got so thoroughly into the habit of advising 

 the tilling of fruit trees — which is certainly 

 the safest advice to give in a majority of 

 cases— that quite often orchards are tilled 

 too much. Like many other excellent 

 orchard methods, tillage can become detri- 

 mental in the hands of an injudicious man. 

 The advantages of using a cover-crop to 

 fill the gap between the last tillage and the 

 spring plowing, were pointed out in The 

 Garden Magazine for March, page 68. 



WHAT MAY BE GROWN BETWEEN THE TREES 



The home orchardist, especially the man 

 whose garden area is limited, is tempted to 

 grow other crops between the trees. Within 

 certain limits, this practice is justifiable ; but 

 some kinds of double cropping are ruinous 

 to orchards. The farmer who sows wheat 

 in his orchard usually garners each fall a 

 little grain and a very disappointing crop of 

 fruit. When the trees are small and until 

 the time when their branches and roots 

 appropriate most of the sunlight above and 

 soil below, the interspaces may be used, if 

 necessary, for some other crop. But never 

 a grain crop. Nothing is more detrimental 

 to the trees, not so much because the grains 

 exhaust the soil or plant food, as that they 

 rob the trees of moisture. Every stalk of 

 wheat is a pump, sucking out of the soil not 

 only the water needed to perfect its own 

 growth, but also evaporating a large amount 

 through its leaves. 



The chief objection to grains in the orchard, 

 or any other sown crop, is that they do not 

 permit of tillage, which is usually essential 

 to the welfare of young trees. The only 

 exception to this is when over-vigorous trees 

 are seeded to grain for the express purpose 

 of checking their growth and throwing them 

 into bearing. If strips of tilled land are 

 left on either side of newly set trees, how- 

 ever, the remaining space may be sown. 



The common advice, born of many dis- 

 appointing experiences, is to plant a hoed 

 crop, not a sown crop, in the orchard. Any 

 annual vegetable can be grown to advantage. 

 Potatoes and corn, although most commonly 

 used, are not as desirable as some other 

 vegetable, because they both draw so heavily 

 on the soil moisture, and if the corn is allowed 

 to grow rank close to the young trees, it may 

 shade and injure them. Put rows of corn 

 at some distance from the trees, not closer 

 than five feet the first season. Never plant 

 any closer to the trees than the roots extend, 



which means that nothing is planted within 

 four feet of the area covered by the spread 

 of the branches, and that the cropped area 

 is diminished each year. 



Strawberries can be grown between trees, 

 if necessary, but, since these have only a small 

 tillable area the second year, unless grown in 

 the hedgerow system, they are not usually 

 as desirable for this purpose as annual 

 vegetables. Vegetables that need cultivation 

 after the time when tillage of the trees should 

 cease, should not be chosen. 



Two things must be adhered to faithfully 

 if. this double cropping is practised: the 

 tillage of the garden crop must be such as 

 is needed by the trees; and the land must be 

 fertilized, if fertilizing is necessary, suffi- 

 ciently to support both crops. 



PRACTICAL POINTS LN ORCHARD TILLAGE 



The man who tills young trees should have 

 far more solicitude for them than the average 

 plowman. Countless fruit trees are ruined 

 by tillage tools. One scrape of the iron end 

 of a whiffle-tree will make an incurable 

 wound on a tender young tree. Some careful 

 men wrap the ends of the whiffle-tree with 

 burlap, if they have to plow close to trees, 

 and use one not over eighteen inches 

 long. A plow with a set-over beam is useful 

 for this purpose. Remove the projecting 

 ends of the hames, which scrape the bark 

 from the under side of the limbs under which 

 the horse passes, and substitute a strap. 



Put a muzzle on the horse when tilling 

 young trees; one nip in an unguarded mo- 

 ment may permanently destroy the symmetry 

 of a choice young tree. If the trees are 

 headed low— as they should be for the most 

 economical management — there will be 

 trouble in trying to till beneath them. Two 

 sections of a spike-tooth harrow or other 

 tillage tool may be separated, so that one 

 section works beneath the trees and the 

 other between the rows. There is less need 

 for tillage beneath the trees than between 

 them, for the moisture-hungry roots are 

 mostly out between the rows. In many 

 cases no tillage beneath the trees is necessary, 

 only an occasional hoeing. Some people 

 even prefer to let their trees stand in a strip 

 of sod and till only the space between the 

 rows, which is about as wide as the sod strip. 

 In such cases straw mulch should be spread 

 beneath the trees. This plan has especial 

 merit when the orchard site is sloping 

 and washing is bad, in which case the sod 

 strips and rows should run across the slope. 

 If it has been decided to adopt the tillage sys- 

 tem, it is best to till the entire area. 



Avoid the mistake, the effects of which are 

 common in older orchards, of plowing the 

 same way every year. After a while the 

 trees are on ridges, with depressions some- 

 times of two or three feet in depth, between 

 the rows. A good plan, when the trees are 

 young, is to plow around the orchard just as 

 though no trees were there. If the soil is 

 thrown toward a row of trees one year, reverse 

 the operation the next year. As a tree gets 

 older it is bound to work out of the ground 

 but the hill and valley contour of many old 

 orchards could have been avoided. 



