s^^'^^^Fi- 



368. The soil mulch. The surface layer of loose 

 dry soil Keeps the moisture below from escaping. 

 This young tree is getting plenty of water to drinK 



of the hogs will be more zealously performed. 

 This is expedient, of course, only on a small 

 area. Hog pasturage makes the orchard look 

 unkempt, and should not be tolerated close 

 to the house ; but it is often the most expedient 

 method of handling a small home orchard, 

 especially if it is rocky, and the soil is strong. 



All things considered, sheep are the best 

 animals to turn into a sod orchard. They 

 graze the grass close, so that little soil mois- 

 ture is lost by evaporation from the leaves. 

 They do not compact the soil seriously. 

 Their droppings are widely distributed. If 

 the orchard site is hilly the droppings enrich 

 the knolls where the animals cluster at night. 

 Sheep injure the trees but little. Some of 

 the best New York orchards are sheep pas- 

 tured. 



Home orchards pastured with any of 

 these animals secure the advantages of having 

 the wormy or diseased windfalls eaten by 

 the stock, and the droppings enrich the land. 

 However, it would not pay to pasture an 

 orchard for these reasons only. Spraying 

 controls insects and diseases far more 

 cheaply and more effectively than any kind 

 of stock pasturing, and the orchard can be 

 fertilized more uniformly and more econ- 

 omically from the manure pile, fertilizer bag, 

 and leguminous crop. 



Poultry and the home orchard often make 

 an excellent combination. The poultry stir 

 the ground considerably, fertilize it, and take 

 an interest in the solution of the insect 

 problem. There is reciprocity. The fowls 

 need sunshine, shade, a range, scratch bed, 

 grass and grit; the trees need scratching 



369. The leaf mulch. The rotting leaves Keep 

 the soil moisture from evaporating. Straw and manure 

 do the same; but tillage is usually cheaper 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



and fertilizing. Poultry seem to be espe- 

 cially valuable in the plum orchard; no cur- 

 culio playing 'possum escapes them. Which 

 animal to use for pasturing the home sod 

 orchard is mostly a question of expediency. 

 Before you decide this, however, go over the 

 whole subject again and see if it will not be 

 better to till the orchard, after all. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF MULCHING 



If a sod orchard is not pastured it should 

 be mulched. The grass may be cut one or 

 more times a season and allowed to fall where 

 it stands, thus mulching the soil. This is 

 preferable to letting the grass grow up and 

 die down. It also helps to keep noxious 

 weeds from gaining a foothold in the sod. 

 Practically all is returned to the soil that was 

 taken from it except the moisture. This 

 method is found to be satisfactory in sod 

 orchards that produce a rather heavy 

 growth of herbage. 



The alternative is to gather the cut 

 grass and spread it around the trees. 

 One objection to this is that the feeding 

 roots of a bearing tree are mostly out between 

 the rows, not beneath the branches, so that a 

 mulch around the tree does not help much. 

 Then, again, there is greater likelihood of 

 the trunks being girdled by mice in winter. 

 Where the herbage of sod orchards is scanty 

 this method is often satisfactory. In most 

 cases both are decidedly preferable to taking 

 the grass away for hay. 



There is no uniform difference in results 

 between mulching and pasturing. Which 

 practice should be followed, after it has 

 been decided to sod the orchard, depends 

 more on expediency than anything else, 

 except that land may be pastured that is 

 too rough or rocky to be mown for mulch- 

 ing. In all sod orchards that are not on 

 strong soil it must be remembered that 

 more fertilizing will be needed than if they 

 were tilled, since tillage increases fertility. 



DO NOT PLANT YOUNG TREES IN SOD 



If the man who is about to plant a home 

 orchard is as busy as he ought to be, he will 

 be inclined to give ear to the advocates of 

 mulching and of pasturing. It is so much 

 easier to let a hog root for you than to follow 

 a harrow through switching branches. But 

 wait — there is one more argument. If there 

 is one orchard in a hundred that might profit- 

 ably be kept in sod when of bearing age, 

 there is not one in a thousand that can 

 profitably be left in sod when the trees are 

 planted. Sod is usually injurious, often 

 ruinous, to young trees. It is a question 

 of moisture more than of food. There are 

 some who claim that the grass actually poisons 

 the soil for the growth of trees, by means of 

 secretions from its roots, but this is not 

 generally accepted. When the trees are 

 well established in the soil, after a few sea- 

 sons, it may be found best to seed down the 

 orchard; but rarely is it advisable to do so 

 at once. Till the soil for two or three sea- 

 sons, anyhow;- or put in a hoed crop, which 

 will necessitate tillage, not a sown crop, like 

 grain; or at least work up the ground for 

 several feet around the tree. The safest way 



370. Keep young trees in tilled ground. Bearing 

 trees may be. left in sod sometimes, but not young 

 trees. Sod is usually ruinous to newly planted trees 



is to start off with tillage wherever possible, 

 whatever may be the system of orchard 

 management adopted later on. 



No man who has seen a thousand or more 

 orchards, and found the neglect of proper 

 tillage so almost universally associated with 

 unsuccessful fruit growing, could help being 

 an advocate of tillage, wherever it is ex- 

 pedient. The actual methods of tilling fruit 

 trees, and associated problems, like cover 

 crops, cannot be discussed here ; the object 

 of this article is to present the reasons for 

 and against tillage, and the substitutes. 



You may call to mind many sod orchards 

 that bear large crops of good fruit. How 

 do you know that they would not bear bigger 

 crops and finer fruit if tilled ? There is only 

 one way to determine that. In solving the til- 

 lage problem for yourself be guided, not by my 

 advice, nor the advice of anybody else, but by 

 the conditions of your soil and the growth 

 and fruit-bearing of your trees. Do not till 

 or perform any other orchard operation 

 because it pays in general; do it only when 

 sure that it will pay in your particular case. 



If your trees bear well, grow well, and you 

 feel satisfied that they are doing their best, 

 don't disturb them. But if they are not doing 

 well, they are not happy in their environ- 

 ment; something is wrong. What -is it?-. 

 Insects? Diseases? Bad pruning? Starva- 

 tion ? Lack of water ? They need a shaking - 

 up; and probably there are two or three 

 things out of joint. Carefully study the 

 tillage problem. It is at the foundation of 

 successful fruit growing and is a common 

 stumbling block to the amateur. 



371. Hog tillage is shiftless, but does very well 

 in rocKy land which cannot be tilled by horse power. 

 The orchard should not be set on the rocKiest spot 



