THE HOME FRUIT GARDEN 7 



garden that includes tree fruits and nuts and furnishes fruit in season 

 for a large family is illustrated in figure 2. 



When and How to Plant. — Usually a better stand of plants will 

 be obtained by setting them as early in the spring as it is possible to 

 prepare the soil. Equally good results will be obtained by planting 

 fruit trees in the fall. The ground should be prepared as thoroughly 

 as for a vegetable garden. It is important that the plants be entirely 

 dormant, with no buds starting, at time of planting. Also, the roots 

 should never be allowed to dry out. Berries and grapes should be set 

 at the same depth as they grew in the nursery. The fruit and nut 

 trees should be set slightly deeper. The roots should be spread out 

 when the plants are set. When the holes are dug the topsoil and sub- 

 soil are separated. The topsoil is placed about the roots of the tree 

 in the holes and the subsoil is used last to fill up the rest of the hole. 

 The soil should be thoroughly firmed about the roots to prevent 

 drying out and to help hold the tree in position. 



Pruning Before Planting. — Strawberries should have all fully 

 developed leaves picked off before being planted. The canes of 

 raspberries, blackberries, currants, and gooseberries should be cut 

 back to 6 inches at time of planting. Grapevines are usually cut 

 back, leaving only one or two buds. If fruit trees obtained from the 

 nursery are unbranched whips, they should be headed back to a 

 height of 3 to 3% feet. If they have several good-sized branches well 

 spaced along the trunk, three or four may be left. The branches 

 should be spaced about a foot apart up and down the trunk and point 

 in different directions. 



Cultivation. — The cultivation of the home fruit garden is similar 

 to that of the vegetable garden for the first part of the season. After 

 about July 15 cultivation of fruit trees and bushes should cease. 

 Strawberries should be cultivated until the end of the growing season. 

 Under most conditions the same methods of maintaining the fertility of 

 the soil that are followed in a vegetable garden are successful with 

 fruit. Where stable manure is available, its liberal use generally gives 

 excellent results. In the States in this region strawberries should not 

 be fertilized after August or early in September. Strawberries should 

 be mulched with straw to protect them from winter injury. This 

 should be done in the fall after killing frosts, but before it is cold 

 enough to freeze the ground. Straw 1 to 2 inches deep after settling 

 in Maryland and Kentucky and 3 inches deep in central and northern 

 Illinois furnishes the needed protection against cold. 



All berry plants should be given clean cultivation as are vegetables 

 unless there is an abundance of straw or other mulching material to 

 furnish a permanent mulch. Fruit trees and grapevines should be 

 given clean cultivation for the first 3 or 4 years if it is not possible to 

 mulch them with straw or strawy manure. Thereafter apples, pears, 

 plums, cherries, grapes, and nuts may be kept in sod. Peaches do 

 best where they receive some cultivation, but they can also be grown in 

 grass and mulched where cultivation cannot be given. Manure mulch 

 will take care of the fertilizer requirements of the fruit plants. When 

 manure is not available, a fertilizer high in nitrogen should be used. 



Pruning After First Year. — To many inexperienced growers the 

 question of how to prune trees and bushes appears to be very compli- 

 cated. If certain basic principles are kept in mind, however, it is 

 possible for even the inexperienced grower to do a highly satisfactory 

 job of pruning. The purpose of pruning is to develop the tree or bush 

 so that it will have maximum strength to carry a load of fruit and maxi- 



