SOIL PROFILE AXD ROOT PEXETRATIOX BY APPLE TREES 



21 



Figure 8 shows the depth and extent of rooting of a Baldwin tree 

 about 50 years old, with a trunk girth of 52 inches, planted on a 

 reddish-brown very gravelly loam with compact sandy till subsoil, 

 the Hilton gravelly loam. The trunk is small for a tree of that age, 

 in this district, and production has been poor and uncertain. At 

 one end of the excavation the roots extended to a depth of nearly 4 

 feet, but at the other end no roots were found deeper than 2 feet. 



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© ROOTS MORE THAN ONE INCH IN 3IA«E"R •• SMALLER ROOTS AND ROOTLETS 



9 BETWEEN ONE HALF AND ONE INCH IN DIAMETER ® LARGE OEAD A 0OTS 



X SMALLER DEAD ROOTLETS 



Figure 9.— Root penetration of a Baldwin apple tree grown on a soil of group 2 developed from water-laid 

 material: A, brown silt loam; B, light-brown silt loam; C, gray and brown mottled silt loam, with a 

 mass of grayish-brown sandy clay on the left; D, light-brown compact fine sandy loam; E, reddish- 

 brown clay; and F, grayish-brown very compact fine sandy loam. 



Depths of root penetration shown in figures 7 and 8 are fairly repre- 

 sentative of the root penetration of a number of trees examined on 

 soils of this kind. 



The average depth of rooting as shown in figure 7 is about 3 feet : 

 the rooting is sparse in the lower part of the soil section, where roots 

 come in contact with the compact layer of till. The surface of the till, 

 as shown in figure 8, is in places very uneven. 



In the level imperfectly drained soils which surround the till ridges, 

 the Hilton gravelly loam and Hilton gravelly fine sandy loam, imper- 

 fectly drained phase, the depth of rooting has been found to be about 

 as deep as on the till soils on the ridges but with roots slightly less 

 abundant. 



